The Irish element in mediaeval culture

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The Irish_ Element in
Medieval Culture

H. ZIMMER

TRANSLATED BY

JANE LORING EDMANDS

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK LONDON

37'WestTwent]r-thixdSt. 04 Bedford St., Strand

S^t ^nicktibaclut ^rus
1891

A

h.Z%QZ.^<o

Copyright, 1891

BY

JANE LORING EDMANDS

Electrotyiwd. Printed, and Boond by

UI>e fcnfcfierboclicr f>rcs9, flew ^orft
G. P. Putnam's Sons

TO THE LATE LAMENTED

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY

WHOSE KEEN INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT OF THIS

ESSAY LED TO ITS PUBLICATION IN

AN ENGLISH FORM. BY THE

TRANSLATOR

PREFACE.

The importance of the work accom-
plished by the Irish monks in Central
Europe during the Middle Ages has
not been fully appreciated by Eng-
lish historians. It is not surprising,
therefore, to find an almost total ig-
norance of the subject on the part of
the general public.

The enthusiastic interest expressed
by the late Mr. John Boyle O'Reilly,
who himself offered to write an in-
troductory chapter to the English
translation of Zimmer's work, was
the principal incentive to the trans-
lator in undertaking it. It is to be
deeply regretted that Mr. O'Reilly's

vi Preface.

sudden death prevented him from
carrying out his plan.

The essay originally appeared in
the Preussische Jahrbucher for Janu-
ary, 1887, and The Nation, in referring
to it, says :

" We should have called our
readers' attention long ago to this
remarkable paper v/hich treats of
the part played by the Irish ele-
ment in mediaeval culture. It deals
with known facts of ecclesiastical
history, and gives a most graphic
picture of the successive groups of
Irish missionary monks, their labors
in France, Italy, Switzerland and
Germany, their strength and their
weaknesses.

" The author's style is clearness
itself ; his grouping and illumination
of cardinal facts and features are

Preface. vii

masterly. We cannot attempt to
condense what is already so con-
cise.

" We can only express the wish
that the paper may be translated
into English.

" Nowhere else will the reader find
such a trustworthy statement of what
the Irish accomplished for the early
Middle Ages."

I have inserted foot-notes compiled
from a variety of sources wherever I
thought they added to the interest
of the subject or illustrated the state-
ments of the author.

J. L. E.

THE IRISH ELEMENT IN
MEDIEVAL CULTURE.

recent work on the
" History of Ireland
from the Reformation
up to the period of
its union with England"'
begins with these words :
" When a semi-barbarous or less cul-
tured nation becomes subject to one
more highly cultured, it generally re-
ceives as a compensation for the loss of
its independence all the advantages and
blessings naturally resulting from a
higher degree of civilization. But a
new condition of things was produced
in Ireland through English rule ; in-
stead of arousing in the Irish mind a
' B7 Dr. Hassenkamp, L«ipsic.

2 The Irish Element in

love and appreciation of English cul-
ture by the exercise of a moderate and
conciliatory policy, calculated to lead
up to a gradual and harmonious blend-
ing of the two races, victor and van-
quished, the English managed, through
a mistaken and blundering policy, as
well as by intentional oppression and
persecution, to bring about such a con-
dition of affairs in Ireland that, in the
first place, the social status of the
Celtic race sank lower and lower,
while, on the other hand, the tender
germ of native culture was nipped in
the bud, or failed of proper develop-
ment from want of nourishment, and
degenerated in quality."

These words explain the prevail-
ing views of the present so-called
cultivated circles of England ; they
hold that at the time of the conquest
of Ireland by England (1171), the
former was, according to the ideas
of the time, a half savage country in
its relations to and compared with

MedicBval Ctdture. 3

its conquerors in point of culture,
and that its people obstinately set
themselves in opposition to the
blessings and advantages brought
them by their more highly civilized
rulers. Hence the hardest and cru-
ellest measures which were laid upon
Ireland and its people during the
ages of English domination receive
a sort of extenuation or justification.
But the very fact that such views as
these are entertained by England,
weighs more heavily upon Ireland
to-day than all her political and
social ills; she rebels because Eng-
land, not satisfied with stripping her
of every present benefit, would even
rob her of the consolation in her
existing wretchedness, to be derived
from looking back with pride over a
glorious past. Ireland can indeed
lay claim to a great past ; she can
not only boast of having been the
birthplace and abode of high culture

4 The Irish Element in

in the fifth and sixth centuries, at a
time when the Roman Empire was
being undermined by the alliances
and inroads of German tribes, which
threatened to sink the whole conti-
nent into barbarism, but also of. hav-
ing made strenuous efforts in the
seventh and up to the tenth century
to spread her learning among the
German and Romance peoples, thus
forming the actual foundation of our
present continental civilization.

We live in a time when the civil-
ization of the Occident, although
drawing its origin from antiquity,
and building itself up from its ruins,
has established for itself a degree of
independence destined to increase
with every decade. However opin-
ions, may differ as to the degree of
real progress reached by our present
civilization, or as to its methods, or
in regard to the question of the
place which positive Christianity

Mediezval Culture. 5

actually holds in it, — in respect to
the past, all thinking minds will
unanimously agree upon two points :
that in those centuries of the Mid-
dle Ages mentioned above, it was
Christianity that first carried civiliza-
tion into tribes of barbarians (even
according to Littr6, who is one of
the strongest adversaries of Chris-
tian philosophy of our age) ; and
that it was the monks who, during
that period, held firmly to the
Church, and were its pioneers and
defenders. Therefore we find that
it was at the time when Christian
civilization and ideas were com-
mingled with the ancient, with
deep respect for classical antiquity
as a standard, that mediaeval cul-
ture reached its highest perfection.
Hence a greater or lesser knowledge
of classical literature, particularly of
the Grecian, was considered as a
proof and measure of the culture of

6 The Irish Element in

a single individual, as well as of the
entire age.

In order to clearly understand and
realize the significance of the Irish
element in mediaeval culture, and
the part which the Irish can posi-
tively claim towards the civilization
of German and Romance tribes, we
must dwell a little upon the condi-
tion of the West before this period.

In the middle of the second cen-
tury Christianity already formed an
element in Roman civilization, and
spread to the remotest provinces of
the Empire^ principally through
their increased intercourse with each
other, and especially by means of
the campaigns of the Roman legions,
even as far as the banks of the
Rhine and into Britain, in spite of
there being as yet no special mis-
sionaries to those countries. In the
course of the third century it spread
still farther, and in the beginning of

Mediceval Culture. 7

the fourth it was decidedly flour-
ishing in Gaul and on the Rhine
and Danube, as well as in Britain,
bishoprics being founded at Co-
logne, Treves,, and Mayence. In
the second half of the fourth cen-
tury Ausonius, the greatest Roman
poet of the age, produced his en-
thusiastic description of the valley
of the Moselle, while Arbogast the
Younger, who had command of the
garrison at Treves during the incur-
sions of various wandering tribes, was
esteemed by Sidonius a model of
the highest Roman culture in that
region.

: The German tribes from the
Rhine and the Danube were now
being gradually brought under the
sway of Greek and Roman civiliza-
tion through the medium of Chris-
tianity. But the internal dissolu-
tion of the Roman Empire and
fresh incursions of savage tribes

8 The Irish Element in

soon put a stop to all this. In the
year 406, hordes of Vandals from the
Upper Rhine invaded Gaul, ancient
Germany, and Burgundy, and set-
tled on the left bank of the Rhine,
while the Huns under Attila made
inroads upon these, and the Franks
from the Lower Rhine burst into
Gaul, making an end of Roman rule
in that country. The Angles and
Saxons had taken possession of Brit-
ain before this, and what remained
of Roman civilization in Upper Italy
under the Heruli and Ostrogoths
was destroyed by the Langobards
and their allies. The German bar-
barians thus ruined and blotted out
the work of several centuries. So
vanished in the sixth century the
last remains of Roman culture which
had lingered on at various points,
particularly in Southern Gaul.

In spite of what Christianity had
done for the Merovingian kingdom.

Mediaval Culture. 9

wretched indeed was its moral con-
dition at the time of the death
of its famous historian, Gregory of
Tours, in 594. The disloyalty of
the Franks had become proverbial.
They had utterly repudiated Ro-
man culture, appropriating only
its accompaning vices. Gregory
of Tours gives a true idea of the
state of ignorance in the kingdom of
the Franks, while he graphically
sketches the depraved condition of
the people and their ruler; he de-
plores the falling off of all striving
after knowledge, and he himself, de-
scended from a Roman family, hav-
ing bishops among his ancestors, has
to confess that in writing in Latin,
he confounds the genders of certain
words, as well as the cases, and is
embarrassed by numerous other
grammatical difficulties. Merovin-
gian records are written in such bar-
barous Latin, that when we find one

lo Tlie Irish Element in

written in tolerably correct Latin,
a suspicion of its genuineness is
aroused, as it may be a forgery of a
later date.

. In Northern and Central Italy the
standard of civilization at that time
was not much higher. Gregory the
Great, one of the most celebrated
of the popes, who greatly strength-
ened the foundation of the Roman
hierarchy, knew nothing of Greek, —
a most notable proof of the general
low standard of cultivation in the
West. 'Even two hundred years
later, the learned and gifted Span-
iard, Claudius, Bishop of Turin, when
expected to defend his views respect-
ing worship of images, of which he
disapproved, before the council of
Italian bishops, declared it to be a
council of asses {congregatio asino-
runi), and the Irish monk, Dungal,
was called upon to undertake the
defence of image-worship. These

Mediceval Culture. 1 1

two learned adversaries, Claudius the
Spaniard, and Dungal the Irishman,
who met on the soil of Lombardy,
are the representatives of those two
countries, — the only ones which of-
fered an asylum to Greco-Roman
culture at the beginning of the sev-
enth century, when it had declined
in the West. Ireland was especially
conspicuous in introducing it anew
in the form of Christianity, princi-
pally into France, these efforts being
made there when civilization was at
its lowest ebb, and the country in its
most degraded condition.'

' Dr. Reeves says of Ireland : " We must de-
plore the merciless rule of barbarism la this
country, whence was swept away all domestic
evidences of advanced learning, leaving scarcely
anything at home but legendary lore, and which
has compelled us to draw from foreign deposito-
ries the materials on which to rest the proof that
Ireland of old was really entitled to that literary
eminence which national feeling lays claim to.
Our real knowledge of the crowds of Irish teach-
ers and scribes who migrated to the Continent

1 2 The Irish Element in

Ireland never became a Roman
province, and the hordes of wander-
ing tribes that overran Britain and
the mainland did not molest her.
We learn from the " Agricola," of
Tacitus, who gives us a minute ac-
count of the campaigns carried on by
that great Roman general under Ves-
pasian, Titus, and Domitian between
the years 78 and 86, that, although
those campaigns did not include Ire-
land, Agricola's curiosity was aroused
by his proximity to it when encamped
on the coast of Britain. Agricola
wrote home to Rome a description
of the country with what informa-
tion he could obtain in regard to it,
and stated it as his opinion, that Ire-
land could be conquered and held

and became foundeis of many monasteries abroad,
is derived from foreign chronicles, and their tes-
timony is borne out by the evidence of the
numerous Irish MSS. and other relics of the
eighth to the tenth century, occurring in libra-
ries throughout Europe."

Medicsval Culture. 13

by one legion, being considerably
smaller than Britain, and declared it
would be a profitable acquisition for
Rome as held against the Britons.'
But the fact of Ireland never coming
under the dominion of Rome greatly
accounts for the Irish tribes and the
Pictish and Caledonian mountaineers
being the only portions of the Celtic
race which retained their indepen-
dence and social characteristics.
These unsubdued Celtic tribes were
reserved for a great purpose, — to in-
augurate the evangelization of Central
Europe. Following the nomadic in-
stincts of their race, they were des-
tined to be pioneers in the missionary
history of Europe, during the decay
of the Roman Empire, and while the
Teutonic tribes were as yet in a state
of semi-barbarism.

Alive as the Irish race was to

' From Agricola we have the earliest notice of
Ireland in real history.

1 4 The Irish Element in

religious impressions, Christianity,
which was preached among them by
British missionaries in the third and
fourth centuries, found in them re-
ceptive and appreciative pupils. In
430 Pope Celestine sent Palladius ' as
a Roman bishop to the converted
Scots, according to Bede's testimony
\cujus (sc. TJieodosii) anno imperii
octavo Palladius ad Scottos in Chris-
tum credentes a pontifice Romance
ecclesice Celestino primus miititur
episcoi>us. Beda,, Hist, gentis Angl.,
i., 13]. The Scots mentioned in the
Middle Ages are synonymous with
the Celtic population of Ireland, and
were not to be distinguished from
that people that early wandered
through the northern part of Brit-
ain and settled in the Highlands.'

' " Palladius was consecrated by the pope and
sent to those Scots (or Irish) believing in Christ
as their first bishop."

° " Whenever, in the first three centuries, the
term Scot occurs it always means Irishman.

MediiBval Culture. 15

While on the mainland and in
Britain budding Christianity and the
germs of Western culture, such as it
was, were effectually trodden under
foot by the various hordes of Van-
Daring the first seven centuries the Picts were
the inhabitants of modem Scotland. It was not
until the eleventh or twelfth century that the
term Scotland or Scotia was applied in its mod-
em sense." — Rev. G. T. Stokes' " Ireland and
the Celtic Church."

The author of " Early Christian Art in Ire-
land" thtis quotes from Reeves' " Adamnan" :

" The early Christian art of Ireland may well
be termed Scotic as well as Irish, just as the first
missionaries from Ireland to the Continent were
termed Scots, Ireland having borne the name of
Scotia for many centuries before it was trans-
ferred to North Britain, and foreign chroniclers
of the ninth century speak of ' Hibemia, island
of the Scots,' when referring to events in Ire-
land regarding which corresponding entries are
found in the annals of that country."

Again this author says : " From Ireland the
practice of the art of illumination spread side
by side with religion to lona, thence to Melrose
and Lindisfame ; and, distinct as its character is
from the art of the Teutonic nations, it was

1 6 The Irish Element in

dais, Alemanni, Huns, Franks, Her-
uli, Langobards, Angles, and Saxons,
and the Merovingian kingdom sank
lower and lower, — when universal
crudeness and depravity seemed to

henceforward misnamed Anglo-Saxon in Eng-
land, while on the Continent it was termed
Anglo-Saxon or Scottish, The fact that Anglo-
Saxon MSS. exist in England with Irish decora-
tion led to the misnomer Anglo-Saxon for this
style until Waagen, who had su6Rcient knowl-
edge of both schools of illumination, drew the
dividing line between them. The mistake,
however, led to much confusion in the Continen-
tal libraries, where even manuscripts written as
well as illuminated by Irish scribes, were fre-
quently named Anglo-Saxon. It is only of late
that writers on the subject have learned that
North Britain was not termed Scotland till the
close of the ninth century, whereas the island of
Ireland had for so many centuries borne the
name of Scotia. The confusion of this Scotic
or Irish art with Anglo-Saxon naturally arose on
the Continent from the fact that MSS. written in
Anglo-Saxon were often illuminated either by
Irish artists or by monks who had learned their
art in Ireland.

" Art in general of this period attained a more

MedicBval Culture. 17

have gained the upper hand, and the
entire West threatened to sink hope-
lessly into barbarism, the Irish estab-
lished several seminaries of learning
in their own country. Bangor and

beautiful result in Ireland than elsewhere, be-
cause in the hands of a people possessed of a fine
artistic instinct. But as regards the drawing of
the human face and figure in the pictures con-
tained in the otherwise beautiful books of the
Irish scribes, nothing more hideous or barbarous
can be well conceived. It seems impossible that
they could have been drawn from nature, but
rather seem reminiscences of some rude Byzan-
tine prototype. Thence we conclude that in the
Carlovingian MSS. of the ninth century we see
not only a mixture of styles, but that, in the in-
troduction of Irish decoration, we have examples
of the engrafting of an archaic style upon an-
other of later date ; a style that had died out of
Italy and Southern Gaul, but lived on in Ireland to
return there centuries later. In Ireland its char-
acter had been modified by absorbing whatever
designs prevailed in the country at the time of
the introduction of Christianity, and thus modi-
fied, it was spread throughout Europe again by
the Irish scribes, though it never prevailed out-
side their sphere, and finally died out with them.

1 8 The Irish Element in

Armagh in Ulster, Clonmacnois, near
the boundaries of Leinster and Con-
naught, and Lismore in the South
were, at the end of the sixth century,
the most prominent and flourishing

To the designer of the present day, who strives
to adopt the ancient Irish forms to present uses,
nothing could be more helpful than the study of
those Carlovingian MSS., which are remarkably
beautiful.

" Interlaced patterns and knot-work, strongly
resembling Irish designs, are commonly met with
at Ravenna, in the older churches of Lombardy,
and at Sant' Abbondio, at Como, and not unfre-
quently appear in Byzantine MSS., while in the
carvings on the Syrian churches of the second
and third centuries, as well as the early churches
at Georgia, such interlaced ornament is con-
stantly used.

" The manuscripts wh"~h remain in Italy as
evidence of the labors Oi %& Irish monks in
that country, are to be seen in the Ambrosian
Library in Milan, in the University Library of
Turin, and in the Real Biblioteca Borbonica,
Naples. All these manuscripts are said to have
been brought originally from Bobio, a monastery
in Piedmont, founded by Columbanus in the
year 613."

MedicBval Culture. 19

monasteries in Ireland. The stand-
ard of learning was much higher than
with Gregory the Great and his fol-
lowers. It was derived without inter-
ruption from the learning of the
fourth century, from men such as
Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.
Here also were to be found such
specimens of classical literature as
Virgil's works among the ecclesi-
astical writings, and an acquaintance
with Greek authors as well, beside
the opportunity of free access to the
very first sources of Christianity.

At the beginning of the sixth
century these Irish Christians were
seized with an unconquerable im-
pulse to wander afar and preach
Christianity to the heathen. In 563
Columba, with t^velve confederates,
left Ireland and founded a monastery
on a small island off the coast of
Scotland (lona or Hy), through the
influence of which the Scots and

20 The Irish Element in

Picts of Britain became converted
to Christianity, twenty-three mis-
sions among the Scots and eighteen
in the country of the Picts having
been established at the death of
Columba (597).' Under his third
successor the heathen Saxons were
converted ; Aedan, summoned by Os-
wald of Northumbria, having labored
aming them from 635 to 651 cis mis-
sionary, abbot, and bishop. His suc-
cessors. Finnan and Colman, worthily
carried on his work, and introduced
Christianity into other Anglo-Saxon

' Columba and Columbanus, both bom in the
sixth century, have been confounded even by
eminent scholais. Columba was bom in Ulster,
and Columbanus in Leinster. The one in 521,
the other in 543. Columba was the apostle of
Scotland or Caledonia. Columbanus never set
foot in Scotland. He was the apostle of Bur-
gundy, Switzerland, and Italy. Columba spent
his life among the Pictish pagans of North
Britain ; Columbanus labored among the pagans
of Central Europe. — Stokes' " Ireland and the
Celtic Church," p. 132.

Medieeval Culture. 2 1

kingdoms near East Anglia, Mercia,
and Essex.

One of the most celebrated monas-
teries of Ireland was founded at
Bangor in Ulster at the end of the
sixth century. From this monastery
at the time (S90) that Gregory of
Tours, the historian of the Franks,
brought out his denunciation of the
corruption of his people, an Irish-
man, a native of Leinster, bearing the
ecclesiastical and Latin name of Co-
lumbanus, set forth with twelve com-
panions and assistants to preach the
gospel to the heathen. He landed
in France, and finding Christianity in
a sinking condition, decided to settle
in the Vosges mountains and estab-
lish a mission there (Anagratum).
The number of converts increased
so fast that he was soon obliged to
found another upon the ruins of a
forsaken Roman bath establishment
at Luxovium (Luxeuil), which be-

22 The Irish Element in

came in course of time a most fruit-
ful centre of ecclesiastical and monas-
tic life. In these two places, as well
as at Fontaines, a mission station
founded somewhat later on, Colum-
banus and his companions worked
successfully for more than ten years.
But the intrepidity with which he
approached and dealt with these
degenerate Merovingians drew upon
him the hatred of the Queen Regent
Brunhilde. Ecclesiastical differences
arose with the Gallic clergy ; he was
driven with his companions from this
field of their active labors and obliged
to flee to Ireland. Being detained by
contrary winds in the mouth of the
Loire, he interpreted this as a sign
from on high that it was his duty to
remain. So, in 6io, he wandered
into the country of the Alemanni,
where he labored as a missionary
under the patronage of Theudebert,
in Bregeriz, on Lake Constance.

Mediesval Culture. 23

Thence, in 613, he went to seek the
patronage of the Langobard princess,
Theudelinde, and founded the Bobio
monastery at the foot of the Apen-
nines, between Genoa and Milan,
which throughout the Middle Ages
bore a high reputation as a seat of
learning and culture in the very
broadest sense. He died there in 61 5.'

' Columbanus was, ia many respects, the
greatest, bravest, most thoroughly national, and
most representative of all the •warriors of the
cross sent forth from Irish shores. Bom in
Leinster, A.D. 543, he was educated first of all
on one of the islands of Lough Erne. Thence
he migrated to Bangor, which was then at the
height of its fame as a place where the great-
est attainments in learning and sanctity were
possible. We are apt to undervalue the studies
of these ancient monasteries, just as we, in
our intellectual conceit, are apt to undervalue
all mediaeval learning, because the men of those
times knew nothing of the daily press, pho-
tography, electricity, or gunpowder. In monas-
teries like Bangor, the range of studies was a
wide one, and it must have been a thoroughly
equipped and vigorous seat of learning in the

24 The Irish Element in

The Irish monk Gallus (St. Gall)
with others had joined Columbanus
on his mission among the heathen,
sharing with him his trials and diffi-
culties like a faithful comrade, but
at the time of Columbanus' depart-

latter half of the sixth century, when it could
have despatched such a trained and even elegant
scholar as Columbanus to convert the pagans of
France. The proofs of his learning are evi-
dent to any student of his writings. The scholar-
ship of them is manifest. He wrote good Latin
verses, full of quaint, metrical conceits, both in
the classical and monkish rhyming style. Allu-
sions to pagan and Christian antiquity abound in
his poems. Where did he acquire this scholar-
ship? His life on the Continent was one of
rough, vigorous, all-absorbing, practical effort,
leaving no time for such studies. Even did time
or leisure permit, the opportunity was wanting,
for the Continent was at that time plunged in
utter darkness, literary as well as spiritual.
St. Columbanus, we therefore conclude, gained
his extensive knowledge and eloquent scholar-
ship at the abbeys of Bangor and Lough Erne.

France was, toward the end of the sixth cen-
tury, a bye-word throughout Euit)pe for immor-
ality and irreligion. When we think of the

MedicBval Culture. 25

ure for Lombardy, was forced by
illness to remain behind with the
Alemanni, one of whom hospitably
cared for him until his health was
restored. Gallus then collected to-
gether twelve associates and set out

Gaul of that period, we must not think of it as
it was in the fourth and fifth centuries, the age
of Hilary of Poitiers, of a Martin of Tours, or a
Germanus of Auxerre. For a hundred years
back, it had been the prey of every invader.
Milman, in his " Latin Christianity," says : "It
is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious
state of society than that of France under her
Merovingian kings, the descendants of Clovis,
as described by Gregory of Tours. In the con-
flict of coalition of barbarism with Roman
Christianity, barbarism has introduced into
Christianity all its ferocity, with none of its
generosity or magnanimity. Its energy shows
itself in atrocity of cruelty, and even of sensual-
ity. Throughout, assa sanations, parricides, and
fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes.
That King Clotaire should bum alive his rebel-
lious son with his wife and daughter is fearful
enough, but we are astounded at the fact of a
bishop of Tours, even in these times, having
burned <t man alive, to obtain the deeds of an

26 The Irish Element in

to seek a suitable spot for a new
mission. He founded one at Stein-
achthal, in a wild, retired spot, in 613,
where he died, between 627 and 646.
He had refused an appointment as
abbot of Luxeuil. Thus originated

estate which he coveted. Fredegonde, wife of
Chilperic I., one of the grandsons of Clovis,
sends two murderers to assassinate Childebert,
and these assassins are clergymen. She causes
the Archbishop of Rouen to be murdered while
chanting the service in church ; and in this crime
a bishop and an archdeacon are her accomplices.
Marriage was a bond contracted and broken on
the slightest occasion.

It was into a country where all the bonds
which bind society together were totally dissolved,
that St. Columbanus flung himself with all the
headlong courage of his race, to be the cham-
pion of morals, the apostle of civilization, the
fearless soldier of the cross of Christ. The two
languages used by him, the Celtic and the Latin,
would, of course, cany him everywhere ; and
the king eventually settled upon him the old
Roman castle of Annegray, where the first Irish
monastery ever planted on the Continent raised
its head. There he laid the foundations of his
system as he had learned it in Ireland. These

MedicBval Culture. 27

the famous monastery of St. Gall,
which afterwards became so emi-
nently distinguished as the chief seat
of learning of ancient Germany.

In the seventh century many other
Irishmen followed in the footsteps of

foundations are plain, aye, the very plainest,
living, high thinking, and hard work. He lived
for weeks, according to his biographer, Jonas
of Bobio, without any other food than the herbs
of the field and the wild fruits yielded by the
forest around. We trace in him the same love of
nature and of natural objects which we find in
some of the beantiful stories told of St. Columba.
All nature seems to have obeyed his voice. The
birds came to receive his caresses. The squirrels
ran to him from the tree-tops to hide them-
selves in the folds of his cowl. One day, when
wandering in the depths of the woods, medi-
tating whether the ferocity of brutes, which
could not sin, was not better than the rage of
men, which destroyed their souls, he saw a
dozen wolves approach and surround him on
all sides. He remained motionless, repeating
the words, Deus in adjutorium. The wolves
touched his garment with their mouths, but
seeing him fearless, passed upon their way.
The example of a quiet Christian household.

28 The Irish Element in

Columbanus and his associates, went
to France and established numerous
missionary stations, which sent forth
pupils, both Franks and Alemanni,
capable of carrying on the work of
their teachers. We have less particu-
lar information about these workers
than we have of Columbanus and

shedding the blessings of civilization, education,
and religion aU around, proved a very powerful
one, even upon men more ferocious than wolves.
Crowds flocked to the Irish teacher to learn the
secret of a pure and happy life, and the great
foundations of Luxeuil and Fontaines followed
one another in rapid succession. Among the
disciples of Columbanus were numbered by
hundreds the children of the noblest Franks and
Burgundians. For twenty years this great mis-
sionary thus labored, till the crisis of his life
came, and his activity was changed to <i new
direction. Having been driven from France
ovring to his quarrel with the wicked Queen
Brunhilde, his only chance of escape was by
the Rhine to Switzerland, whence, after success-
ful labors, he painfully crossed the Alps into
Italy, where he was received with great respect
and endowed vrith the church and territory of
Bobio. Columbanus undertook to restore the

MedicBval Culture. 29

his influential envoys, as related by
the Abbot Jonas of Bobio. But so
much is known: that near the end
of the seventh century and at the
beginning of the eighth, a long series
of these missionary establishments
extended from the mouths of the
Meuse and Rhine to the Rhone and

old church of St. Peter's, which was in existence
there, and to add to it a monastery. Despite
his age, he shared the workmen's labors, and
bent his old shoulders under the weight of enor-
mous beams of fir-wood. This Abbey of Bobio
was, in one sense, his last stage. He made it a
citadel of orthodoxy against the Arians, lighting
there a lamp of knowledge and instruction which
long iUumined Northern Italy. The monastery
existed until suppressed by the French in 1803,
while the church still serves as a parish church.
But Columbanus ended life by seeking a soli-
tude more profound still. Upon the opposite
shore of Trebbia he discovered a cavern, which
he transformed into a chapel, and there, like
other Irish anchorites, he spent his last days " in
solitude," till God called His faithful and fear-
less servant home, on November 21, 615.

At Bobio the coffin, chalice, and holly-stick
or crosier of St. Columbanus are still preserved.

30 The Irish EUtnent itt

the Alps, while many others founded
by Germans are the offspring of
Irish monks, and throughout the
chronicles and " Lives of the Saints,"
names purely Irish are constantly
found : Caidor, Furseus, FuUan, Ultan,
Foillan, Goban, Deicolus, and Livin
are among the best authenticated
names. The Merovingian king, Dago-
bert, retired in 656 to one of the
cloisters founded by the Irish; and
the so-called "Annals of Lorsch,"
record the dates of the deaths of a
whole line of Irish abbots: Canan
(704), Domnan (705), Cellan (706),
Dubdecras (726), Macflathei (729),
from the different monasteries.

Alcuin, the great author and the
pride of Charlemagne's court, had
undoubtedly these same Irish apos-
tles in mind, when in a letter written
to an Irish monk at the beginning of
the eighth century he mentions the
fact that in old times {antiquo tetn-

MedicBval Culture. 3 1

pore) the most learned instructors of
Britain, Gaul, and Upper Italy were
from Ireland.

But the Irish missions had spread
even to the other side of the Rhine,
as well as the most eastern of the
Frank settlements, and even into
Bavaria, then independent of the
Franks. According to the testimony
of the Abbot Jonas of Bobio, con-
temporary of St. Columbanus, and
at one time a monk in his Italian
convent, as well as his biographer,
about six hundred and twenty mis-
sionaries went from Luxeuil, the
headquarters of Columbanus' mis-
sionary work, into Bavaria ; and tow-
ard the end of that century, the
Irish monk Kilian, together with his
associates. Bishops Colman and Tot-
man, suffered martyrdom at Wurz-
burg, near the boundary of Thuringia
and the country of the eastern
Franks.

32 The Irish Element in

Ireland even shared indirectly in
attempts to convert the Frieslanders
and Saxons.' Those energetic mis-
sionaries, at the end of the seventh
century, Victberct, Hewald, and Wili-
brord, although Anglo-Saxons by
birth, all received their theological
training in Ireland. Bede's Historia
Gentis Anglorum, book v, ix, x.
Alcuin relates of Wilibrord, the
Apostle to Friesland, that he spent
twelve years in Ireland under the
most distinguished teachers of the-
ology. " Britain gave him birth, but
Ireland reared and educated him."
{Quern tibi iatn genuit fecunda Brit-

' Dr. Reeves notices tlie acliievements of the
following Irish missionaries : SS. Cataldus, Fia-
cra, Fridolin, Colman, and Kilian, none of
whom find place in English annals. St. Cataldus
labored in Southern Italy ; St. Fiacra, in France ;
St. Colman is patron Saint of Lower Austria ;
Kilian taught in Franconia ; Fridolin, at Glarus,
where his figure finds place in the cantonal arms
and banner.

Medicsval Ctdture, 33

tania tnater doctaque nutrivit studiis
sed Hibernia sacris.)

From the biography of Colum-
banus we can get a true picture of
the personal appearance of the Irish
missionaries, and of their mode of
procedure in their work. In groups
of twelve under a leader (the abbot
of the future settlement, who was
generally its chieftain also), carrying
long staves, leathern knapsacks, and
flasks and writing tablets,' they trav-
elled through the land of the Franks,
with long, flowing locks and painted
eyelids. They appeared thus among
the Franks and Alemanni, exhorting
them with fiery eloquence, at first
through an interpreter, and after-
wards in the language of the country,
which many acquired, like Gallus (St.

■ Their long, narrow tablets of wood were
often mistaken by the unlettered natives for
swords, and supposed to be in reality constructed
of iron, and intended to shed blood.

34 The Irish Element in

Gall). Wherever they settled down,
they erected within a large enclosure
little wooden huts and a chapel.
They supported life by cultivating
the land and by fishing, and sought
to influence the people of the sur-
rounding country by exhortation,
precept, and example. Both Franks
and Romans joined them, and similar
colonies were formed far and near
from this first one as a starting-point.
There is no trace of any attempt hav-
ing been made here by these Irish
missionaries or their German pupils
to draw the heathen into the lap of
Christianity by means of the external
ceremony of baptism.

It is difificult for us to realize what
the pagan life really was which these
early Celtic missionaries had to con-
front, or the effect produced by their
contrasted Hfe of purity and self-
denial upon the surrounding pagan
masses, whose respect they com-

Mediaeval Culture. 35

pelled. When the Anglo-Saxon Win-
frid, surnamed Boniface, appeared in
the kingdom of the Franks as a pa-
pal legate in 723, to romanize the
existing Church of the time, not one
of the German tribes (Franks, Thu-
ringians, Alemanni) or the Bavarians
could be considered as pagans. What
Irish missionaries and their foreign
pupils had implanted for more than
a century quite independently of
Rome, Winfrid organized and estab-
lished under Roman authority, partly
by force of arms.

Considering the attitude of the
Irish monks in the seventh cen-
tury toward the Anglo-Saxons and
Franks, it is quite easy to compre-
hend in what way and how earnest
was the desire for knowledge awak-
ened in their converts, and why it
became a necessity for these to group
themselves around their revered in-
structors and to follow in their lead.

36 TTie Irish Element in

Thereupon Anglo-Saxons flocked to
Ireland in large numbers to complete
their education, both religious and
classical, in Irish monjisteries. Many
such instances are quoted by Bede
(672-735) in his "History of the
Anglo-Saxons." He informs us that
in 654, many nobles among the
Angles went to Irelzmd to pursue
theological studies, and were warmly
welcomed by the Irish, who furnished
them with board, instruction, eind
even the necessary manuscripts quite
free of expense. He gives the names
of two of the most conspicuous of
these Angles, Edilhun and Ecgberct,
as well as a brother of the former,
who, after completing his studies in
Ireland, returned home to conduct a
bishopric. In another part of his
book, Bede speaks of Victberct
(above mentioned) as the pupil of
Ecgberct, and quotes him as a most
distinguished theologian (doctrime

MedicBvcd Culture. 37

scientia insignis), adding in paren-
thesis, by way of explanation evi-
dently, that he had passed many
years in Ireland.

But the most eloquent testimony
to Ireland's fame as a seat of learn-
ing in the seventh century is furnished
us by the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm.
Bom in 850, of a noble race, he en-
joyed the privilege of the instruction
of Hadrian, an abbot of Kent, who
came from Tarsos with Theodore,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and who
was considered an accomplished
Latin and Greek scholar. Aldhelm
then went to the monastery of
Malmsbury, founded by the Irish,
where he continued his studies with
great zeal. It is related of him that
he mastered Latin thoroughly, and
understood Greek equally well, be-
side Anglo-Saxon. Thus was the
school at Malmsbury, originally
founded by an Irish monk (Mael-

38 The Irish Element in

dun or Maelduf), raised by Aldhelm
to become one of the noblest institu-
tions of learning in England.

About this time, the middle of the
seventh century, the Irish Church
assumed a somewhat independent
position toward Rome. A number
of innovations had found their way
from Rome into the Christian Church
of the West, such as changes in the
basis of calculation regarding the
correct time for the celebration of
Easter, questions as to the mode of
wearing the tonsure,' the uncondi-

' The Greek tonsure, styled St. Paul's, was
total ; the Roman, styled St. Peter's, was coro-
nal. The Celtic tonsure, on the other hand,
was from ear to ear ; that is, the anterior half of
the head was made bare, but the middle part
was untouched. Thus it was as different from
the Eastern as it was from the Roman tonsure,
and clearly had grown up among the Celtic
Christians without any copying of other churches.
Eastern or Western. — Haddan's "Remains,"
p. 239.

MedicBval Culture.. . 39

tional celibacy of the higher orders
of the priesthood, etc'

These were all new to the Irish
Church and to the communities
founded by her missionaries. Greg-
ory the Great and his immediate

' " The feast of Easter has been a subject of
controversy since the second century. The
churches of Asia followed the Jewish method of
computation, while all other churches observed
the Christian style. The earliest Easter cycle of
the Christian Church was naturally identical with
that used by the Jews. It was called the eighty-
four year cycle. During the debates of the
second century, this cycle was discovered to be
faulty, and Rome determined to have a reform
of the calendar.

" But the Irish Church had received with St.
Patrick and its first teachers the old Jewish and
Roman cycle of eighty-four years. Barbarian
invasions and wars and distance separated the
Irish teachers from Rome and its new fashions.
They knew nothing of the new cycle of 532
years. Their whole energy was concentrated in
study and missionary effort, and so they con-
tinued faithful to the practices of their fore-
fathers. \Vhen St. Augustine and the Roman
mission came to Canterbury, about the year 6cx),

40 The Irish Element in

successors took infinite pains to es-
tablish outward uniformity in church
matters, and on Saxon soil, where
the Irish missionaries from the north
met the Romish from the south,
these differences became sharply de-
fined. The Irish were obliged out-
it -was found that Rome and Ireland differed very
considerably about this important question."

The Roman Church laid the penalty of exclu-
sion from Christian communion upon all those
who would not conform themselves to her calcu-
lations, regarding them as Jews, and thus origi-
nated a most bitter and prolonged strife in the
history of the Church.

The Celtic Church finally yielded to the See
of Rome in this matter by the beginning of the
eighth century, but this consent involved no
submission in regard to other matters, so that
the Celtic Church continued to differ from Rome
on very important questions, even dovra to the
twelfth century.

The supremacy of Rome over Ireland would
doubtless have been established much sooner but
for the Danish invasions. Those pagan Danes
cut Ireland off from the Continent Just as, three
centuries earlier, the Saxon irruption completely
isolated the British Islands.

Mediceval Culture. 41

wardly to yield their opinions on
Saxon ground, and Colman was
forced to leave Northumbria. It
can be readily understood how fa-
natical partisans of Rome, such as
Aldhelm, frowned upon the fact that
large numbers of young Anglo-Sax-
ons were now congregating in Ire-
land, and sorely feared they would
return imbued with heretical views.
In such a mood and under the influ-
ence of such views, Aldhelm writes
from England to one of three young
men just returned from Ireland :

Why does Ireland pride herself upon
a sort of priority, in that such numbers
of students flock there from England,
as if here upon this fruitful soil there
were not an abundance of Argive or
Roman masters to be found, fully
capable of solving the deepest problems
of religion and satisfying the most am-
bitious of students.

42 The Irish Element in

But Aldhelm's reluctance to ac-
knowledge the supremacy of the
Irish monsisteries is merely an ad-
ditional testimony to the high degree
of culture attained by them in the
seventh century/

But not by Anglo-Saxons alone was
Ireland looked upon as the highest
seminary of learning; the Franks
were also at this time strongly at-
tracted by her great fame. Bede

■ "After the seventh century, the missionary
activity of the Irish Church was no longer the
one absorbing national thought and passion.
Other interests had arisen. The Roman contro-
versy about Easter, and the ever-increasing
claims of the Roman See, helped to distract
attention.

" Controversy then, as now, led men's minds
from practical work, and hindered the advance
of the Gospel. The incursions of the Danes,
too, deprived the Irish Church of that internal
tranquillity needful for missionary enterprise.
The boldest spirits, which used to seek the post
of danger and the crown of martyrdom in foreign
missions, could now find that position much
nearer home."

Medieeval Culture. 43

mentions a Frank named Agilberct,
who spent several years in the study
of theology in Ireland, and on leav-
ing that country was persuaded to
remain for a time in England. On
his return to his own country, he was
made bishop of Paris, where he died
at an advanced age. But more strik-
ing than are these individual in-
stances is the indisputable fact that
the Irish were destined to become
the instructors of the Germans,
Franks, and Alemanni in every
known department of knowledge of
that time.

As is well known, in 752 the last of
the degenerate Merovingian kings
retired to a cloister, and Pepin's en-
ergetic son Charlemagne (768-814)
greatly encouraged education among
his Frankish subjects and the Ger-
man tribes he governed. His chief
architect and private secretary, Ein-
hard or Eginhard, who wrote his

44 The Irish ElemerU in

biography, tells us that such was
Charlemagne's desire to perfect him-
self in the art of writing, that he
kept a writing tablet constantly by
him, and even put it under his pil-
low, that his right hand, grown sti£f
with the exercise of warlike arms,
might accustom itself to form the
letters.'

To Irish scholars France now of-
fered a fruitful field, and Charle-
magne received them with open arms.
The most illustrious foreigner at-
tached to his court was Alcuin, an
Anglo-Saxon monk, and a very learn-

• "Charlemagne was, to a great extent, the
founder of our modem European system of
civilization. To him are largely due all our
modem institutions, political, religious, and so-
cial. Art, learning, and literature are under the
profoundest obligations to a prince who, though
he could scarcely sign his name, and was in
many respects a rude barbarian at heart, yet
always displayed the keenest interest in, and
sjrmpathy with, subjects of which he was pro-
foundly ignorant."

Medieevcd Culture. 45

ed man, who became Charlemagne's
chaplain and chief counsellor ; but in
looking back over the latter half of
his reign, and those of his immediate
successors, we find the names of nu-
merous Irish scholars. As in the
early part of the seventh century,
the Merovingian kings welcomed the
Irish apostles who spread Christianity
and the first elements of culture
among the German tribes, so now in
the ninth century, in schools and
monasteries all over France, the
Carlovingian kings employed Irish
monks as teachers of writing, and
tutors in grammar, logic, rhetoric,
astronomy, and arithmetic'

' The commercial intercourse between France
under the Merovingian kings and Ireland was
very important indeed. Dagobert Second was
sent to Ireland for his education. Innumerable
foreign ecclesiastics came to Ireland in that age
to improve themselves in the study of Scripture,
then so extensively cultivated there.

From one author of Charlemagne's time we

46 The Irish Element in

A friend of Alcuin, one Joseph
(Scotusgenere), an Irishman by birth,
went to France with him before 790.
All that we know of him is that he
was employed there as a teacher, and
died before Alcuin (804). Among

learn that even Orientals sought the shelter of
this island, driven thither by the intolerance of
the Eastern emperors.

From the close and direct correspondence be-
tween the French court at that age and the lead-
ing -Irish monasteries, there is no difficulty in
accounting for the transmission from Gaul to
Ireland of a type of architecture resulting in the
round towers, which have excited such interest
among archaeologists, — a type eminently suited
to the. troublous times of the Danish invasion.
These towers, the object of much debate, are now
pronounced to be of Christian and ecclesiastical
origin, and were erected at various periods be-
tween the fifth and thirteenth centuries. They
were undoubtedly designed to answer a twofold
use ; namely, to serve as belfries, and as keeps
or places of strength, in which the sacred uten-
sils, books, relics, and other valuables were de-
posited, and into which the ecclesiastics to whom
they belonged could retire for security in case of
sudden predatory attack. They were also prob-

Meditevcd Culture. 47

the scholars of Charlemagne's court,
we read in the writings of Theodulf,
a Spaniard, of a certain Irish monk
who lived in constant enmity with
Theodulf, Angilbert, and Einhard.
Theodulf attacks him with the great-

ably used when occasion reqaired as beacons and
watch-towers. The very ancient Irish churches
had no bell-towers apart from the round tower.
The date of the earliest is somewhat disputed
by different authorities, but all agree that it
precedes the invasion of the Danes. It may be
argued, if the type were originally imported from
France, why are such detached church towers
not to be seen there still, when they are so com-
mon in Ireland ? The answer to that is, that the
Continental church-towers of the Carlovingian
age have been almost wholly destroyed, and
generally replaced by towers of a later and more
beautiful type, while they have been left to stand
in Ireland.

The invention of towers and steeples is traced
directly back to Syria. The earliest churches
were simple basilicas. The basilica was the
Roman modification of the Greek temple and of
Greek architecture. The Greeks knew nothing
of the principle of the arch. This was the
Roman contribution to the science of architec-

48 The Irish Element in

est virulence and contempt, and by
leaving out one letter of his name,
makes of Scotus either Sottus or
Cottus.

To some Irishman, whose name is
unknown, also patronized by Charle-
magne, is attributed an epic poem,

tuie. Neither the Greek temple nor the Roman
basilica had anything like a tower attached to it.
It is a fact of noteworthy importance that this
style of architecture came from the very same
quarter whence came many other peculiarities of
the early Celtic Church.

To the Eastern researches instituted by Napo-
leon Third we owe these interesting facts.

Another account says : " These lofty towers,
undoubtedly the keeps of the monasteries, were
a protection to their churches, compelled by the
attempted colonization of Ireland by a pagan
invader resolved to extirpate the Christianity he
found there. Various towers on the Continent
which bear resemblance to those of Ireland are,
without doubt, of contemporary date. Such
were the eleven round towers of Ravenna, of
which six still remain ; that of San Nicolo of
Pisa, San Paternian at Venice, Schness in Switz-
erland, St. Thomas in Strasburg, Gemrode in
the Hartz, two at Nivelles in Belgium, one at

3fedicsval Culture. 49

written in 787 to celebrate Charle-
magne's victory over Thassilo, Grand
Duke of Bavaria. The same " Irish
exile " (Hibernicus exul), as he calls
himiself, addressed several poems to
Charlemagne as " Kaiser," by which
we judge that the " Irish exile " must

St. Maurice Epinal, one at St. Gennain des
Pres, one at Worms in Hesse-Darmstadt, and
two at Notre Dame de Maestricht in Belgium.
The isolated position of Ireland on the outskirts
of Europe alone accounts for the remarkable
preservation of these towers from attacks of bar-
barians which desolated the Continent.

" They may all be said to derive their origin
from an influx of Byzantine workmen into the
north of Italy and to the court of Charlemagne,
and the circular tower may be a reminiscence of
the Eastern cylindrical pillar. Unfortunately,
in France, according to Viollet le Due, nothing
but the lower stories of such towers are left,
which must have existed during the Carlovingian
age. The absence of such upon the Continent
has led to great difficulty and obscurity in pro-
nouncing with certainty upon the age and use of
the Irish towers. Dr. Petrie, however, by his
investigations brought their date down from a
pre-Christian time to a period ranging from the

50 The Irish Element in

have been the sobriquet of a well-
known and distinguished personage
at court.

Another Irish scholar, named Cle-
mens, is mentioned by a monk of
St. Gall as arriving at Charlemagne's
court near the end of the ninth
century, and innumerable anecdotes
are related concerning the rich and
indolent pupils of his school, as weU

sixth to the thirteenth centuiy, and firmly estab-
lished their ecclesiastical character.

" The inscriptions upon the high crosses of
Ireland, of which there are forty-five still re-
maining, show that they were commemorative,
as, for instance, those dedicated to the memory
of Patrick and Columba. There is no evidence
whatever to prove that such sculpture as we find
upon these was executed before the tenth cen-
tury, but the ornamentation npon various sepul-
chral slabs is incised (that upon the high crosses
being in relief), which shows a knowledge of the
art of modelling the human figure, and acquaint-
ance with the early Christian Art of the Byzan-
tine and Roman schools, and their systems of
iconography. These sepulchral slabs date from

Medieeval Culture. 5 1

as the poor and diligent ones. Cle-
mens was tutor to the future Emperor
Lothaire, and continued his labors
in the court seminary after Charle-
magne's death. His fame was so
great that the Abbot Ratgar of
Fulda sent Modestus and some of
the best pupils from the monastery
of Fulda to study grammar under
the Irish monk. Clemens died in
Wiirzburg in 826, after having made
a pious pilgrimage to the grave of

the seventh to the tenth century. The study of
the iconography of the British Isles is of para-
mount interest as bearing evidence to the gradual
entrance of their inhabitants into the current of
European thought and culture, and their iJtimate
assimilation with the larger, fuller life of Conti-
nental Europe.

"Christian subjects, similar to those on the
Irish stones, are found upon sarcophagi at Aries,
at Ravenna, and at Velletri.

" This art of sculpture, which spread through-
out Britain in the ninth and tenth centuries,
attained there more beautiful results than else-
where, owing to the fine, artistic instincts of the
Celtic mind."

52 The Irish Element in

his fellow-countryman, the sainted
Kilian. In the court records he was
called " Instructor to the Imperial
Court " (magister palatinus).

Dungal was another Irish savant
who was employed by Charlemagne
and his successors. He probably
went to France at the same time
with Clemens, and seems to have
enjoyed a high reputation as an
astronomer, having, at Charlemagne's
suggestion, written a scientific report
upon two solar eclipses which had
taken plaice during the preceding
year. He laments in the reports the
want of reference books, particularly
the work of Pliny the Younger, and
declares it impossible to pronounce
definitely upon all phases of the sub-
ject as he would wish to. During
the early part of his stay in France,
he lived at St. Denis ; afterwards we
find him in Upper Italy at the Mon-
astery of St. Augustine, in Pavia.

Medicsval Ctdture. 53

where he was directed by Charle-
magne to form and superintend a
class of ambitious young students.
By a bull, issued by Lothair the First
in 823, he was appointed to a high
position in the Academy at Pavia, to
which pupils from Milan, Brescia,
Lodi, Bergamo, Vercelli, Genoa, and
Como were sent. Here in Lombardy
he engaged in a controversy with
Claudius (whom we have referred to
above) upon questions pertaining to
Church matters, and we learn, more-
over, that Dungal was not only inti-
mate with the older Christian poets
such as Prudentius and Fortunatus,
but also greatly esteemed Virgil and
Priscian, the famous Roman gram-
marian. He ended his life in the
monastery of Bobio, not far from
Pavia, founded by his famous com-
patriot, Columbanus. This monas-
tery was situated in a retired gorge
in the Apennines, and its school and

54 The Irish Element in

library rank among the most cele-
brated of the Middle Ages. Its
manuscripts prove the high scholar-
ship and deep research of the Irish
missionaries. Even modern learning
owes something to this library. We
have seen a catalogue made in the.
tenth century of the manuscripts
belonging to this monastery, forty of
which are mentioned as " presented
to the monastery of St. Columbanus
by the distinguished Irish scholar,
Dungal " ; and at the present day
some of these are to be seen in the
Ambrosiana, at Milan, dedicated in
Dungal's own handwriting, and in
which he speaks of himself as " be-
longing to " the monastery of Bobio.
Another Irish scholar, Dicuil, lived
at the Carlovingian court at the same
time with Dungal, and undoubtedly
filled a position in the same institu-
tion. Through his works we know
him as a grammarian and metrician,

MedicBval Culture. 55

as well as an astronomer and geog-
rapher. In 814-816, he produced an
entirely new treatise upon astronomy,
and in 825, at an advanced age, a
well-known text-book of geography,
for some scientific facts of which he
was indebted to contemporary trav-
ellers. This book gave the first
authentic information about the
Faroe Islands, which had been vis-
ited by Irish hermits more than a
hundred years before, but were in
his time forsaken, on account of the
incursions of Norman pirates. He
mentions the fact of the Irish having
escaped by sail-boats. Moreover, he
has the first reliable information in
regard to Iceland, knowledge which
he obtained thirty years before from
Irish priests, who remained there
from February to August. The
truth of these interesting accounts
is proved in two ways : in the first
place, the tolerably exact statements

56 The Irish Element in

as to the length and shortness of the
days could only have been deter-
mined by a resident in the place ;
then from Northern and independent
sources we know that the first Nor-
wegian settlers, who were, of course,
pagans, found Christians there whom
they called Papar^ and who left Irish
books, croziers, bells, and other things
behind them when they went away.
When we recall the Irish missions
established on the Continent, and the
fact that St. Kataldus,- the patron
saint of Tarento, in Southern Italy,
was an Irish pilgrim of the seventh
century, and that Irishmen went to
the Faroe Islands at the same time,

• The Irish anchorites found in Iceland by the
heathen colonists were called Papar, itoia papa,
meaning priest or pope. This derivation, how-
ever, may be considered as somewhat doubtful,
for their whole history is involved in obscurity.
The islands of Papey on the southern coast of
Iceland, also Papey in Orkney and other places,
are supposed to be named after them.

MedicBval Culture. 57

and to Iceland in the eighth century,
we can realize the extent and strength
of the nomadic instinct or impulse
which drove those Irish Christians
out into the unknown world to open
its eyes to the light of Christianity.
How strongly the Alemanni of the
ninth century, who never left their
own country, were impressed by this
trait of the Irish, is perceived by the
well-known remark of Walahfrid
Strabo (849), when, in allusion to
them, he says : " The habit of ram-
bling to distant lands has become a
second nature to this people."

Equal to Dicuil as to the extent
of his general knowledge, but far
surpassing him in originality of
thought, was his compatriot Johan-
nes Scotus Erigena. The greatest
thinker of his age, his philosophical
works mark an epoch in the world's
literature, in the opinion of many
modern critics. Of the particulars

58 The Irish Element in

of his career, we know scarcely more
than that he was living in the king-
dom of the Franks in 840, and re-
ceived a position in the court school,
under that generous patron of science,
Charles the Bald ; that he in time be-
came principal of the school, and was
still living in 877. He is distinguish-
ed both from his predecessors and
from those who came after him, by
not having taken orders; and, al-
though educated in a monastery, was
the first layman who had excelled
in scholarship for a long period. In
his knowledge of Greek, particularly
of the Greek fathers and philoso-
phers, he far surpassed all other
scholars. He was ordered by Charles
the Bald to translate into Latin the
works of Dionysius Areopagita, in
which a sort of Neoplatonism, modi-
fied by Christianity, is expounded.
His clief-d^ ceuvre is, however, his
"System of Philosophy" produced

MedicBval Culture. 59

before 865 (nsfh (pvaeooi f^epiajxov,
id est, De divisione natures), in which
he had the hardihood to present
philosophy as an independent science,
and of equal importance with the-
ology, which, as he affirmed, is sup-
ported by authority, as philosophy
by reason. Authority (or Holy Writ)
is to theology what nature is to rea-
son. Where the two come in col-
lision, reason must take the lead ; for
it needs not the support of authority.
These aphorisms of Erigena's were
so astounding for that time that it is
not to be wondered at that he, £ls a lay-
man, was considered as encroaching
upon the subject of predestination,
then being contested in the Church,
and that his writings were condemned
on all sides. He became involved
in dogmatic controversies, and was
cried down on every side as a here-
tic Pope Nicholas I. demanded of
Charles the Bald Erigena's presence

6o The Irish Eletnent in

in Rome, that he might vindicate
himself; but Charles the Bald es-
teemed the philosopher too highly
to let him go, and he remained un-
molested. Erigena's work was, how-
ever, condemned by several church
councils and finally at Rome in 1059.
Beside a commentary on Marcianus
Capella, he wrote a number of occa-
sional poems, dedicated to his royal
patron on certain festal days, as well
as several in the Greek language.

Contemporary with Johannes Sco-
tus Erigena, we find another able
Irish scholar working in France —
Sedulius Scotus. As we learn from
one of his poems, he reached the
cathedral chapter house, at Liege,
one intensely cold day, through deep
snow drifts, exhausted by hunger
and fatigue, and was warmly wel-
comed on account of his classical
attainments. He was employed there
as teacher from 840 to 860, and soon

MedicBval Culture. 6i

after died at Milan. He was pro-
ficient in mythology and ancient his-
tory, a finished Latin scholar, and
familiar with Greek. Beside com-
mentaries on the Holy Scriptures
and grammatical treatises, which
were a necessary part of the educa-
tion of every scholar of that time,
he composed numerous poems, for
special occasions, addressed to Charles
the Bald, whose praises he sang when
that monarch visited Lifege, drawn
thither by the literary fame of its
monastery. A comic poem is also
attributed to Sedulius. A bishop
had presented him with a sheep. A
thief stole it, and, being chased by
dogs, dropped his prey, which natu-
rally was seized upon by the dogs.
The victim's heroic resistance against
terrible odds is graphically described
by the bard. From the poems of
Sedulius, we learn that many of his
countrymen, " learned grammarians,"

62 The Irish Element in

were also at Li^ge, one of whom,
Cruindmel, left behind him a gram-
matical treatise of importance.'

But Irish scholars were also labor-
ing among the Eastern Franks, the
Bavarians and Alemanni. One of
them, named Virgil, was bishop of
Salzburg from 743 to 784. He had
been abbot of Aghaboe in Ireland,
but, on going to France, was recom-
mended, by Pepin, to Odilo, Grand
Duke of Bavaria, to fill the See of
Salzburg. In the year 740, the papal
legate, Bonifatius, denounced him at
Rome for promulgating false doc-
trines, as he maintained that the sun
and moon passed underneath the
earth, and that there must be inhabi-
tants on the other side. This accu-
sation shows that Virgil must have
been conversant with Greek litera-

• " At Vienna there is a copy of the ' Life of St.
Columha,' being a manuscript of Sedulius, writ-
ten in double columns, with red initial letters."

Mediceval Culture. 63

ture, and probably familiar with the
doctrine of Eudoxus and Eratos-
thenes, as to the spherical form of
the earth. Irish annals give him the
surname of the " geometrician."

Dobda, or Dobdagrecus, a compa-
triot of Virgil, possibly so called from
his knowledge of Greek, was also
a teacher at Salzburg, but Dobda-
grecus is probably a Latin form of
the word Dubdachrich, a name often
quoted in Irish annals of the time,
as having distinguished himself in
Bavaria as a teacher.

In the German monastery of Rhei-
nau, a few miles beyond Schaff-
hausen, we find, in the ninth century,
an account of an illustrious Irish-
man, Findan, who, though no repre-
sentative of Irish scholarship, may
be cited here as a famous character
of mediaeval times. He was a na-
tive of Leinster, and in 840 went
with several companions on pilgrim-

64 The Irish Element in

ages through Gaul, Alemannia, and
Lombardy. After being a priest for
four years among the Alemanni, he
retired in 851 to the Rheinau mon-
astery, and died there in 878. For
the last twenty-two years of his re-
tirement at Rheinau, he, of his own
free will, endured the severest pen-
ances and privations, which greatly
added to the monastery's renown.
His voluntary sacrifices were at first
beyond his power of endurance ; the
spirit was too weak to resist the
cravings of a devouring hunger.
Then he had recourse to prayer; he
saw visions and heard celestial voices,
which counselled and exhorted him
in an ancient Irish dialect, although
he was in the far distant land of the
Alemanni. Now the oldest of the
manuscripts, which give us those
Irish phrases uttered by heavenly
voices, date only from the tenth cen-
tury, and must have been noted

MeditBval Culture. 65

down directly after Findan's death,
and in the handwriting of one of his
fellow-countrymen. The voices ex-
horted him to patience, whereupon
his temptation passed from him. The
picture of an Irish pilgrim in Ale-
mannia, wrestling with earthly long-
ings, and supported by voices from
heaven, which spoke in the ancient
Irish tongue, is certainly an original
one. Since the Vita could evidently
only have been written out by some
one familiar with the Irish language,
it is proved that near Findan's time,
as well as later, Irish promoters of
learning were settled on that island
in the Rhine.

In the neighboring monastery of
Reichenau (augia major), on an
island in Lake Constance, we find
traces of Irish culture, if not of Irish
monks themselves. In alluding to
the German abbot, Erlebald, of
noble birth (822-838), his successor,

66 The Irish Element in

Walahfrid Strabo (849), says that
the former was first instructed in
theology at Reichenau, by Heito,
and afterwards was sent with a
companion to some learned Irish
instructor, to enjoy the privilege of
his training in secular branches of
science and the arts. We find that
at the same time, Ratgar of Fulda
sent scholarly monks for the same
object to the Irish Clemens, the
director of the school, which makes
it quite probable that Clemens was
also the instructor of Erlebald.
While Erlebald was abbot, a cata-
logue of the library at Reichenau
was made. It consisted of 415
manuscripts, 30 of which were writ-
ten in the cloister in Erlebald's time
(822-838). Seven of these volumes
were presented by him from his own
private library.

Considering that Irish monks were
at Rheinau in the ninth century, and

MedicBval Culture. 67

had, as we find, much intercourse
with those of St. Gall, it is strange
that we have no positive proof of
their presence in Reichenau, it being
situated on one of the most fre-
quented and direct routes to Rome.
This fact is the more remarkable, in-
asmuch as we have at the present
day a large quantity of manuscripts,
dating from the end of the eighth
into the ninth century, from the
library of Reichenau, which were
undoubtedly written by Irish sa-
vants, as for example : at St Paul, in
Lavanthale (Steyermark), there is a
manuscript full of extracts written by
some Irish monk, and brought from
St. Blasien one hundred years ago,
which contains Irish poems dating
from the end of the eighth cen-
tury, Latin hymns, the commence-
ment of a commentary on Virgil, a
treatise on astronomy, Greek decli-
nations and paradigms, as well as a

68 The Irish Element in

short Greek vocabulary. In Carls-
ruhe, there is a manuscript from
Reichenau, together with several
works of Bede, dating from the first
half of the ninth century, which
must have been written in Ireland,
chronological notes and explana-
tions of the text being the work of
three different Irishmen and one
German. There is also in Carlsruhe
a manuscript of Priscian, of the same
date as the above, which not only
gives the so-called Irish recension of
this author, but contains Irish com-
ments as well.

Now the question arises how these
manuscripts and others written by
Irishmen, could have been found at
Reichenau. Ekkehard the Younger,
the chronicler of St. Gall, informs us
that at the time of the Magyar in-
vasion of 925, the books from the
monastery of St. Gall were trans-
ported to Reichenau for safety, and

MedicBval Culture. 69

that when all danger was over the
same number were returned, but not
the same manuscripts. Unless we
have recourse to the highly improb-
able assumption that all the manu-
scripts at Reichenau of Irish origin
are owing to that interchange, it fol-
lows that we must concede the fact
that there must have been Irish
teachers there in the ninth century.
Among the books added to the
library at Reichenau under Erlebald
(823-838), is mentioned a Prisciani
de arte grammaticce liber unus quem
Uragrat presbyter dedit; this must be
the noted Irish version of Priscian.
St. Gall' was the most celebrated
monastery in Germany at that time,
and for more than three hundred
years it was looked upon as the

• The quadrangular bell of St. Gallus is pre-
served in the monastery of St. Gall. There is
also a silver book-shrine (in the museum) of
Irish workmanship. Gallus was the favorite
and most honored disciple of Columbanus.

7© The Irish Element in

chief nursery of learning of the
whole kingdom. It owes its reputa-
tion greatly to its connections with
Ireland and the work of learned Irish
monks in its university. For Irish
travellers to that region, it must al-
ways be an attractive spot, as having
been founded in 613 by their com-
patriot, the learned monk Gallus.
Although the annals of this monas-
tery, absorbed apparently with ac-
counts of its external prosperity,
make -no mention of these relations
with Ireland until the early part of
the ninth century, so much the more
striking become other more genuine
proofs. In Ireland, during the sixth
and seventh centuries, a considerable
change is perceptible in the writing
of the Latin manuscripts, as to the
form of several letters and otherwise,
showing a marked difference to the
Latin of the Continent, particularly
that of France and Italy. Now the

Mediceval Culture. 71

so-called Vocabularius S. Galli was
written in 780, in the Irish method
of writing Latin, a sure proof of the
presence of learned Irish monks in
St. Gall at that time. There is still
to be seen there a written catalogue
compiled in the first half of the ninth
century, reporting not less than
twenty volumes (volumina), two
smaller ones (codicilli), and nine other
manuscripts in the Irish Latin, — a
testimony which speaks louder than
the ordinary, insufficient chronicle of
a monastery. In one of the manu-
scripts the removal of the bones of
St. Gall to the new church is nar-
rated (83 s) ; there were, therefore,
Irish eye-witnesses to that event in
the monastery at the time, and the
catalogue is of a later date.

We find other external proofs of
the residence of Irish monks at St.
Gall and of the efficiency of their
instruction there. Walahfrid Strabo,

72 TTie Irish Element in

in his revision of Gozbert's account
of the miracles of St. Gall, mentions
the miraculous cure of a sick Irish-
man left behind by his travelling
companions, who was still living in
the monastery after his recovery, in
the writer's day, — a furthur proof of
Irish visitors and residents at St. Gall
in the first half of the ninth century.
At about the same time that Jo-
hannes Scotus Erigena was direct-
ing the school at Paris, Sedulius
Gcotus devoting himself to teach-
ing in the cathedral school at Li^ge,
and Findan at the monastery of
Rheinau, there came to St. Gall, on
their return from Rome, an Irish
bishop named Marcus and his
nephew, Moengal, with a number of
compatriots. Moengal, afterwards
in the monastery called Marcellus,
or " the little Marcus," seems "to
have made a powerful impres-
sion upon the monks by his great

MedicBvcd Culture. 73

learning, both in theology and the
secular sciences, (erat in divinis et hu-
tnanis eriiditissimus). They prevailed
upon Marcus and his nephew to re-
main with them, with a part of their
company. The rest went home laden
with gifts, but their manuscripts
were kept back by Marcus for his
own use and for that of the monas-
tery. Moengal must have labored
for more than ten years in the school,
as we have seen documents of his,
bearing various dates, and he is men-
tioned as still living in the year 865.
Ekkehard writes enthusiastically of
the " great prosperity of the monas-
tery under such favorable auspices."
What Moengal achieved there can
hardly indeed be overrated. The
three scholars, Notker, Ratpert, and
Tuotilo, were put under his instruc-
tion, after having been tutored in
theology by Iso. Moengal excelled
in theology as well as in every other

74 The Irish Element in

branch of knowledge, and trained his
pupils thoroughly in music. Under
his teaching St. Gall was at the
height of its fame. Ratpert tells us
that under Abbot Grimald, 854-872,
the library acquired seventy addi-
tional manuscripts, besides Grimald's
gift of thirty-five more from his own
private library. Moengal's residence
at St. Gall produced an unwonted
impetus to composition among the
inmates of the monastery.

During that century, the Irish par-
ticularly excelled in two of the arts :
calligraphy and music. With the
first, miniature painting and sculp-
ture were closely allied. In these
the Irish show a lack of taste in
representing figurative designs, com-
bined with a high degree of technique,
and in the art of coloring they were
quite unapproachable. But the great
proficiency of the Irish in calligra-
phy, miniature painting, and sculp-

Medieeval Culture. 75

ture is so universally acknowledged,
that further mention of the fact is
superfluous.

Is it by pure accident that St. Gall
is so celebrated for the beauty of its
penmanship, its miniatures and carv-
ings? Was it by chance that the
two most conspicuous students of
these sister arts, Sintram and Tuo-
tilo, whose fame spread beyond the
land of the Alemanni to Metz and
Fulda, became pupils of Moengal?
We have proofs that the Irish have
been highly cultivated in music from
the early mediaeval times up to our
own. Sedulius Scotus, teacher at the
cathedral school at Li^ge, compares
himself to Orpheus, and calls Cal-
liope his consort.' Moengal gave

' The arts in which Christian Ireland excelled
before the thirteenth century were the writing
and ornamentation of MSS., metal-work, stone-
cutting, and building. The first art, that of the
scribe, was indeed carried to marvellous perfec-
tion in Ireland ; and although, owing to the

76 TJie Irish Element in

music the highest place among the
arts, and the music school of St.
Gall certainly reached its fullest
perfection under his three students,
Ratpert, Notker, and Tuotilo.

In my opinion there were very few-
men who, in the middle of the ninth

invention of printing, this is no longer an hon-
ored handicraft, yet the story of the circle of
Giotto shows how important technical skill was
considered in the days of great religious art.
"When the messenger of Pope Benedict IX.
came to Florence, he requested Giotto to give
him a drawing to send to his Holiness as a sam-
ple of his powers. Giotto, who was very cour-
teous, took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped
in a red color ; then, resting his elbow on his
side, with one turn of his hand he drew a circle,
so perfect and exact that it was a marvel to
behold." To draw a perfect circle, unaided by
the compasses, is a feat only to be accomplished
by an eye and hand in perfect training and obedi-
ence to the artist's will. Such circles are to be
seen in every page of the famous " Book of
Kells," the finest amo' g the MSS. of the Gos-
pels. The church of Kells, in which this book
was used, was founded by Columba. There is
no instance of a letter O, in the large round

MedicBval Culture. jj

century exerted such a beneficent
influence upon the German mind in
the cultivation of the higher arts and
sciences as Moengal and his follow-
ers. I need hardly point out how
little Scheflel's picture corresponds
with the historic Moengal.

lettering of this book, in which the slightest sign
of a swerving hand is perceptible.

" Writing," says Dr. Reeves, " formed a most
important part of the monastic occupations."
Besides the supply of service-books for the nu-
merous churches that sprang into existence, and
which probably were without embellishment,
great labor was bestowed upon the ornamenta-
tion of some manuscripts, epecially the sacred
writings ; these are wonderful monuments of the
conceptions, skill, and patience of the scribes of
the seventh century. The penmanship of the
Irish scribes is known to have exercised a con-
siderable influence on that of the Continent from
the time of its first introduction by the Irish
missionaries, and this continued to prevail till the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Irish
monks instructed their disciples in the technicali-
ties of this art, such as the manner of holding
the pen, the preparation of ink, and indeed the
whole process of writing, the results of which

78 The Irish Element in

For more than a century after
Moengal's time, various Irish schol-
ars established themselves at St.
Gall, as is proved by the records of
deaths, which comprise very many

are of exquisite beauty. The writing apparatus
consisted of taiula or waxen tablets, graphia or
styles, calami or pens, made either of goose-
quills or crow-quills, and the ink used was
carbonaceous, not mineral. The parchment, as
compared with that made use of in France from
the seventh till the tenth century, was for the
most part much thicker. It is often finely pol-
ished, but sometimes homy and dirty. On the
whole, these scribes do not appear to have at-
tained much perfection in the preparation of the
skins, with which they were supplied by their
goats, sheep, and calves. The thick ink in use
is remarkable for its blackness and durability.
The scarlet ink was particularly brilliant and
pernianeut ; it was made from cockles, " a most
beautiful color, which never fades with the heat
of the sun or the washing of the rain, but the
older it is, the more beautiful it becomes," ac-
cording to Bede. He also notes that such virtue
lay in the books of the Irish missionaries that the
mere ' ' scrapings of their leaves that were brought
out of Ireland, if put into water and swallowed.

Medicsval Culture. 79

genuine Irish names. The tenth cen-
tury was an unfortunate one for St.
Gall, not to mention the seizure of
the monastery by the Magyars in
925, at the time of their disastrous

were an antidote to the poison of serpents.''
The extraordinary neatness of the handwriting,
and its firm character, have led several English
antiquaries to express opinions as to the writing
instruments which were used by the Irish monks.
The notion that they employed extremely sharp
metallic pens is quite untenable. That these
were made from neither reeds nor metal, but of
the quills of swans, geese, crows, and other birds,
is proved by several pictures in Irish manu-
scripts, where the Evangelist, engaged in writ-
ing his Gospel, holds in his hand a pen, the
feather of which can be clearly perceived. The
ink-stand is also represented as a simple, slen-
der, conical cup, fastened either to the arm of
the chair, or upon a small stick on the ground.

Sixty-one remarkable scribes are mentioned as
having flourished in Ireland before the year goo,
forty of whom lived between A.d. 700 and 800.

Diligence in writing was one characteristic of
St. Columba as well as of his successor at lona,
and the title of scribe is frequently used to
enhance the dignity of a bishop.

8o The Irish Element in

incursions in the Rhine valley. About
the year looo began the " Silver
Age " of St. Gall, according to one
of its historians, but many names
which greatly contributed to its
glory and reputation are in the list
of those who fell victims to the
plague in 1022 (Notker, Rudpert,
Amo, Erimbert).

The fame of the old monastery
was so increased by the briUiancy of
its native scholars who, in time, far
outstripped their Irish teachers, that
it is hardly to be wondered at that
the former began gradually to look
down with a degree . of contempt,
possibly tinged with jealousy, upon
the Irish scholars, who continued,
however, to come there from time to
time, the native students being in-
clined to forget to whom they owed
the foundation of their institution.
Dubwin, the Irish savant, bitterly
complains of his German brethren.

MedicBval Culture. 8i

reproaching them not only for appro-
priating to themselves the harvest
sown by others, but for assuming all
the credit of it.

It seems hardly necessary to accu-
mulate any further testimony on the
subject, after studying this long list of
Irish scholars who labored in France
under Charlemagne, his son and
grandson, to implant on German soil
a knowledge of Christian and secular
science, emanating at that time from
Ireland alone of the whole Western
world, and establishing itself at so
many different points : Clemens,
Dicuil, and Johannes Scotus Eri-
gena at the court school ; Dungal
at Pavia ; Sedulius Scotus at Lifege ;
Virgil at Salzburg; and Moengal
at St. Gall. However, two more most
convincing proofs may be mentioned.

Hieric, in his biography of St.
Germanus, a bishop of Roman Gaul,
a work finished in the year 876, takes

82 T7ie Irish Element in

occasion in his dedication of it, to
laud the emperor, Charles the Bald,
as the protector of Johannes Scotus
Erigena against the pope, and as a
promoter of general literature and
of philosophical studies. After cit-
ing the fact that the emperor even
summoned Greeks to his court, he
exclaims :

" Need I remind Ireland that she
sent troops of philosophers over land
and sea to our distant shores, that
her most learned sons offered their
gifts of wisdom, of their own free will,
in the service of our learned King,
our Solomon ! " One more testi-
mony. A distinguished writer, still
living, in a work on the literature of
the Carlovingian period, speaks of the
famous philosopher, Johannes Scotus
Erigena, as having been appreciated
on account of his Irish birth and
education, and notably for his knowl-
edge of Greek. The mere fact that

MedicBvcd Culture. 83

a scholar was living in France in the
middle of the ninth century, who
understood Greek, and other general
literature as well, was enough to
arouse the idea that he must have
enjoyed the privilege of Irish train-
ing, and is no insignificant testimony
to Irish culture.

I have endeavored to give a de-
tailed sketch of those Irish mission-
aries who came into the Merovingian
kingdom of the Franks, at the begin-
ning of the seventh century, to in-
troduce Christianity to the German
races. Some of the monks of St.
Gall present quite a different picture
of the Irish scholars who appeared in
the Carlovingian kingdom toward
the end of the eighth and in the
ninth centuries. But their accounts
contain many false statements as
well as anachronisms, and show oc-
casionally a spirit of jealousy and
exaggeration, especially in regard to

84 The Irish Element in

the Irish scholars' estimate of them-
selves and the abilities of their Ger-
man pupils. However highly we
estimate the work of the Irish monks
in the Carlovingian period, and their
claim to having been the means of
introducing spiritual culture among
the German and Roman peoples, we
can hardly wonder that their con-
temporaries often expressed different
opinions from ours. In many in-
stances these foreigners were rivals
of the native scholars, even if superi-
or to them ; this would weigh heav-
ily against them, and, moreover, they
cannot be charged with an overween-
ing modesty. We even hear of
bitter enmities between the rival
scholars of different nationalities in
Charlemagne's court, and we read
complaints of the Irish monk, Dub-
win, in the eleventh century, who
accuses the Prankish monks of look-
ing down upon his fellow-laborers.

MedicBval Culture. 85

We have certain proofs of open hos-
tilities within the cloisters. Marianus
Scotus, who lived from 1056 to 1082
in various monasteries, Cologne,
Fulda, and Mayence, alludes to them
in his " Chronicles of the World,"
which can be seen in the Vatican
library at Rome, being aqjong the
manuscripts stolen from the Heidel-
berg library. Another manuscript,
written in a mixture of Irish and
Latin by some other Irish student in
Mayence, gives numerous foot-notes
on personal matters and every-day
incidents of cloister life.

Ireland's mission on the Continent,
at least in all her important fields
of labor, was completed in the
eleventh century. But Irish monks
continued to wander through the
Rhine valley for a hundred years
afterward, no longer, however, as
apostles and teachers to the Germans.
Their innate love of wandering drove

86 The Irish Element in

them into foreign lands to end their
lives as anchorites in various cloisters.
We read of another Irish Colum-
banus at Ghent in 957 ; in Cologne,
in 975, the monastery of St. Martin
was given up to Irish monks,
and, for a time, that of St. Panta-
leon was also directed by a Scotch
abbot. At about the same time
Irish monks come into posses-
sion of a monastery at Metz, where
Fingan became abbot, and where he
died in 1003 ; the hermit, Animchad,
died at Fulda in 1043, ^"d an Irish
recluse named Paternus was buried
at Paderbom in 1058. In 1056,
Marianus Scotus left Ireland for Co-
logne, then went to Paderbom and
Fulda, and made a pilgrimage to
Wurzburg, the resting - place of
Kilian's remains. He afterwards
lived in the monastery of Fulda as
an anchorite for ten years, then went
to Mayence, where he died in 1082,

Mediesval Culture. 87

after completing his great " Chronicle
of the World" (before mentioned).
The Irish savant, David, directed the
cathedral school in Wiirzburg tow-
ard the end of the century, and be-
came chaplain and court historian
to the Emperor Henry V., whom he
accompanied to Rome in 1 1 10, then
returned to Ireland to occupy a
bishopric there.'

At the very time that traces of
Irish missionary work became less
and less marked in those localities
which had been the scenes of their

' At WiiTzburg we find a remarkable monu-
ment of early Irish occupation in the copy of
the Pauline Epistles, with the interlinear glosses.
Here also is preserved the Latin Bible, which
was found in Kilian's tomb in the year 743,
Kilian having been interred in 687. This book
is still exposed upon the altar of the cathedral
church on St. Kilian's festive day. A curious
representation of the crucifixion appears in this
manuscript, where cherubim are ministering to
the penitent thief, whilst ill-omened birds are
pecking at the impenitent sinner.

88 The Irish Element in

most active labors from the seventh
to the tenth century, some Irish
monks succeeded in establishing
themselves in another part of Ger-
many, where they founded an insti-
tution that became the mother of
numerous lesser monasteries which
flourished for more than a century.'

■ One of the most celebrated Irish scholars
and writers of the Middle Ages was Marianus
Scotus of Ratisbon. He was an enclosed anchor-
ite, and tells us himself that he daily said mass
standing on the grave of his predecessor, and
with his own grave open beside him. The insti-
tution of anchorites flourished to such an extent
that a rule was drawn out for them, which gives
the details of their existence. " An anchorite's
cell should be built of stone, twelve feet long,
and twelve broad. It should have three win-
dows, one facing the choir, through which he
may receive his food, and a third for light. The
window for food should be secured by a bolt and
have a glazed lattice, to be opened and shut, be-
cause no one should be able to look in except as
far as glass will allow ; nor should the anchorite
have a view out. He should be provided with
three articles, a jar, a towel, and a cup. After

MeduBval Culture. 89

In 1067 Muiredach Mac Robertaig,
generally called by his Latin name

tierce he is to lay the jar and cup ontside the
window and then close it. About noon he is to
come over and see" if his dinner is there. If it
be, he is to sit at the window and eat and drink.
When he has done, whatever remains is to be
left outside for any one who may choose to re-
move it, and he is to take no thought for the
morrow. But if it should happen that he has
nothing for his dinner he is not to omit his
accustomed thanks to God, though he is to re-
main without food tiU the following day. His
garments are to be a gown and cap which he is
to wear waking and sleeping. In winter he may,
if the weather be severe, wear a woolly cloak,
because he is not allowed to have any fire save
what his candle produces."

It is only of late years that facts have come to
light which alone will explain many Oriental
ideas, the existence of which in the West has
puzzled historical students. These facts explain
some peculiarities of the Celtic Church and of
Celtic monasticism. In Gaul, Syrian and Eastern
monasticism was flourishing when Christianity
passed over to Ireland. In Irish monasticism
we should therefore expect to find traces of
Syrian and Oriental practices in the constitution,
the customs, the learning, the art, and the archi-

go The Irish Element in

of Marianus Scotus, started with two
associates from the north of Ireland

lecture of the early Celtic Chnrcli. Some pecul-
iarities of Irish monasticism, for instance, can
only be explained by a reference to Syrian ideas
and customs. Now this anchorite institution was
a peculiar mark of Eastern monasticism. In the
West, it took a more practical turn, the monks
being the great civilizers of the Middle Ages.
But in Ireland we find the enclosed anchorite
flourishing side by side with the agricultural or
learned and artistic monk. Anchorites of this
kind were imported from Syria to Gaul and
thence to Ireland, where this institution flour-
ished in greatest vigor, because it just fell in with
that tendency to extremes which ever marks the
Celtic race. The type of the early Celtic mon-
astery is to be sought not among the Latins, but
among the Greeks and Orientals.

Modem investigation has conclusively proved
that the Celtic race is endowed with a mar\'ellous
tenacity, its race customs, its tribal organizations,
its tribes and traditions all embodying ideas
brought from the most distant East.

Another account says : " The most important
Irish settlement in Bavaria was at Ratisbon ; a
monastery founded there dedicated to St. James
was the parent of many Scotic monasteries. The
' Life of the Holy Marianus Scotus of Donegal '

Medieval Culture. 91

on a pilgrimage to Rome. After
long sojourns at various points, they

is preserved here, also his ' Commentary on the
Psalms of David.' On reaching Ratisbon, Mari-
anas and his companions were received into the
convent of ObermOnster, where Marianus was
employed by the Abbess Emma in the transcrip-
tion of books. He wrote some missals and a
number of other religious books, his companions
preparing the membranes for his use. After
some time he was minded to continue his original
journey; but a brother Irishman, called Mur-
tagh, who was then living as a recluse at the
ObermOnster, urged him to let it be determined
by Divine guidance whether he should proceed
on his way or settle for life at Ratisbcn. He
passed the night in Murtagh's cell, and in the
hours of darkness it was intimated to him that
wherever on the next day he should first behold
the rising sun, he should remain and fix his
abode. Starting before day he entered St. Peter's
Church, outside the walls, to implore the Divine
blessing on his journey. But scarcely had he
come forth, when he beheld the sun stealing
above the horizon. ' Here, then,' said he, ' I
shall rest, and here shall be my resurrection.'
His determination was hailed with joy by the
whole population."

It is further recorded of Marianus that " this

92 The Irish Element in

reached Ratisbon, where they re-
ceived a hospitable welcome at the

holy man wrote from beginning to end, with his
own hand, the Old and New Testament, with
explanatory comments on the same books, and
that not once or twice, but over and over again,
with a view to the eternal reward, all the while
clad in snowy garb, living on slender diet,
attendfed and aided by his brethren, who pre-
pared the parchments for his use ; he wrote
also many smaller books and manuals, psalters
for distressed widows and poor clerics of the
same city, towards the health of his soul, without
any prospect of earthly gain. Furthermore,
through the grace of God, many congregations
of the monastic order, which in faith and charity
and imitation of the blessed Marianus, are de-
rived from the aforesaid Ireland, and inhabit
Bavaria and Franconia, are sustained by the
writings of the blessed Marianus." He died on
the gth of February, 1088. Aventinus, the Ba-
varian annalist, styles him : Poeta et Theoh-
gus iTisignis, nuHique sua seculo secu7idus. A
copy of the Epistles of St. Paul, written by
Marianus " for his pUgiim brethren," is pre-
served in the Imperial library of Vienna. At
the end of the MS. are these words : In honore
Individua Trinitatis, Marianus Scottis scripsit
kunc librum suis fratribus peregrinis. Anima,

Medicsval Culture. 93

Obermunster nunnery.' They de-
cided to settle at Ratisbon, and
founded an Irish monastery in the
year 1076. Tidings of this, accord-
ing to the statement of Marianus'
biographer, reached Ireland, where-
upon many of his countrymen left
kith and kin to follow Marianus,
seven of whose immediate successors
to the dignity of abbot were natives
of the north of Ireland. The old

ejus requUscai in pace, propler Deum devote
diciie Amen,

An old chronicle says : " Now be it known,
that neither before nor since was there a more
noble monastery, such magnificent towers, walls,
pillars, and roofs, so rapidly erected, so perfectly
finished, as in this monastery, because of the
wealth and money sent by the king and princess
of Ireland."

" The richly decorated portal of the church
escaped fire and stood out firmly against every
assault."

' The abbesses of the nunnery of Obermflnster
held the rank of princesses of the Empire, and
occupied seats in the Diet.

94 The Irish Element in

monastery soon became insufficient
for them, and they founded another,
the monastery of St. James, the
church of which was consecrated
in 1 1 II.

But Ratisbon was by no means
the goal of these Irish monks, im-
pelled as they were by the rambling
instincts of their race. Johannes,
one of Marianus' associates, went to
Gottweich,' in Austria, where he
died as anchorite ; the other went to
Jerusalem. Another of Marianus'
followers went with some Ratisbon
merchants to Kief, whence they re-
turned to the monastery, laden with
costly gifts of skins and furs. From
the proceeds of the sale of these

' The celebrated Benedictine monastery of
Gottweich, in Lower Austria, about forty miles
west of Vienna, was founded in 1072. It was
situated upon a steep hill, and was richly en-
dowed. The buildings were destroyed by fire
in 1718, and afterwards rebuilt. It now belongs
to the diocese of the archbishopric of Vienna.

MedicBval Culture. 95

goods the monastery of St. James
Wcis erected, and the church already-
built was furnished with a new roof.
On Frederick Barbarossa's return
from his crusade in 11 89 through the
country which is now Bulgaria, he
found at Skribentium a monastery
governed by an Irish abbot. Letters
written by Irish abbots in Ratisbon
in 1090 petition King Wratislaw ' of
Bohemia for an escort for their mes-
sengers through that country to Po-
land. Whence it is no matter of
wonderment that there arose in the
twelfth century, more or less directly
inspired by this influential monastery
of St. James of Ratisbon,' a long list

1 Duke Wratislaw of Bohemia was crowned
king for his services to the Empire, and par-
ticularly for having sustained the Emperor Hen-
ry rv. against Rudolph, his competitor. He
was rewarded with the title of king in 1086, and
the hand of the emperor's daughter Julia, beside
the sovereignty of Lusace. He died in 1092.

' St. James of Ratisbon was the last remaining

96 The Irish Element in

of Irish monasteries, as follows : one
at Wurzburg, in 1 134; at Nuremberg,
in 1 140 ; at Constance, in 1 1 42 ; St.
George at Vienna, in 1155 ; at Eich-
stadt, in 1183 ; and that of St. Mary
at Vienna, in 1200.

At the Lateran Council, in 1215,
the twelve existing Irish monasteries
of Germany were formally placed
under the authority of that of St.
James at Ratisbon, which received
in 1225, through the favor of the
Roman king, Henry, the privilege
of bearing the imperial half-eagle on
its escutcheon. The Abbot of St.

of the Irish-Scotch monasteries in Germany. It
■was closed in i860, for want of funds to support
the small number of resident monks and students.
The church was built in 1 100. The singular
projecting north porch dates from the thirteenth
century, its large circular arch (pure Norman) is
supported by pillars with lions at their bases, and
curiously ornamented with quaint carvings of
crocodiles and other monsters, supposed to repre-
sent the triumph of Christianity over heathenism
(see frontispiece).

Mediaval Cidture. 97

James of Ratisbon, at this, the time
of that monastery's greatest pros-
perity, controlled the Irish monas-
teries of Oels in Silesia, Erfurt in
Thuringia, Wurzburg, Nuremberg,
Eichstadt in Franconia,' Memmin-
gen and Constance in Swabia, and
Vienna in Austria.

The Irish monks who, from the
eleventh to the thirteenth centuries
quitted the north of Ireland to make
pilgrimages to this part of Germany,
were worthy successors of those apos-
tles and scholars we find in France
from the seventh to the tenth cen-
turies — full of zccd, piety, sobriety,
and a genuine love for learning. The
hospitable reception which Marianus

' Francoiiia, which lay in early times on both
sides of the Rhine (kingdom of the Franks),
is now situated south of Thuringia. The MSS.
discovered and acquired from this region were
but a small installment in discharge of the old
debt Franconia owed to Ireland for her mis-
sionary services.

98 The Irish Element in

Scotus found at the nunnery at Ra-
tisbon gives evidence that he must
have made himself very useful there
in transcribing breviaries and other
pious documents ; in fact, Aventinus '
makes mention of a psalter he him-
self saw at Ratisbon, which was
written by Marianus for the Abbess
Matilda, in the year 1074. More-
over, a chronicle of the monastery
of Ratisbon, written in 1185, states
that the greater portion of all the

■ Aventinus (1460), a celebrated philologist of
Bavaria, and professor of languages at Vienna
and Cracow, was made tutor to the children of
the Duke of Bavaria, and wrote the " Annals of
Bavaria." He was imprisoned in 1529, on sus-
picion of heresy, but no charge was made against
him, and he was released by his patron. At the
age of sixty-four, he first began to contemplate
marriage. He consulted his Bible, and deter-
mined to marry the first woman he met, which
proved to be his own maid-servant, who was
deformed, poor, and ill-tempered. He died in
I534i aged sixty-eight, and was buried in the
church of St. Emmeran, at Ratisbon.

MedicBval Culture. 99

existing documents belonging to the
different Irish monasteries, which
sprang from that of St. James of
Ratisbon, were written by Marianus.
A specimen of his beautiful script
and a proof of the remarkable rapid-
ity of his work may be seen at the
court library at Vienna, where is
preserved a copy of the Epistles of
St. Paul (Codex 1247) ; it consists
of 160 sheets, and was written by
him between the 23d of March and
the 17th of May, 1079, as is proved
by numerous foot-notes of his own.
Very many of the monks coming
directly from monasteries in Ireland
brought books with them, which they
presented to the German monasteries.
These men (Malachias, Patricius,
Maclan, Finnian) and others (1190
to 1240) were well known to the
Irish monks in Vienna, as well as
the books themselves.

In a manuscript to be found at

lOO The Irish Element in

Dublin, written in the Irish dialect
in iioo, it is stated that a manu-
script belonging to the celebrated
monastery of Monasterboice, in
Ulster, which had been in its pos-
session so late as the year 1050,
was missing, a student of the mon-
astery having carried it away with
him to the Continent. It was from
that part of Ireland that those com-
patriots of Marianus Scotus came,
who followed him to Ratisbon after
1076.

The chronicles of the Ratisbon
monastery state that the first Irish
abbot of Wurzburg, Macarius (Mc-
Carthy ?) was remarkably learned in
the science of theology and renowned
throughout Ireland for his exhaust-
ive study of the liberal arts. His
second successor, Carus, became chap-
lain to Conrad III. and first abbot of
the Irish monastery at Nuremberg.
The next one, Declan, was chaplain

Mediaval Culture. loi

both to Conrad III. and Frederic
Barbarossa.

The twelfth century, that in which
the basilica of St. James of Ratisbon
was erected, was the most flourishing
period of the Irish monks in Ger-
many. The decline of their influ-
ence began about the middle of the
thirteenth century, and is easily ex-
plained. We should make a marked
distinction between these Irish monks
of the eleventh, twelfth, and thir-
teenth centuries and those apostles
sent forth from Ireland during the
four previous centuries.

Columbanus and his successors set
forth to preach the gospel to heathen
Germany ; they founded missionary
stations there, and made every effort
to attract the people into their midst.
Their highest aim was so thoroughly
to educate their pupils, both Franks
and Alemanni, in the principles of
Christianity, that'their own presence

I02 The Irish Element in

should become superfluous ; so that,
in many instances, the second gen-
eration of monks in one of these
institutions would be wholly German,
and governed by a German abbot.
It was quite otherwise with Marianus
and his successors. They founded
Benedictine monasteries, which were
entirely closed to Germans, and con-
tinually strengthened by reinforce-
ments from abroad. What they
accomplished was neither more nor
less than what any of the monasteries
of German origin did.

Still less can they be compared
with those champions of the Irish
culture in the Carlovingian period in
France. Dungal, Johannes Scotus
Erigena, Clemens, Sedulius Scotus,
and Moengal are representatives of
a higher culture than was then to be
found on the Continent : a purely
Christian training and severely simple
habit of mind, joined to the highest

MedicBval Culture, 103

theoretical attainments based upon
a thorough knowledge of the best
standards of clcissical antiquity.
These Irishmen had a high mission
entrusted to them, and they faithfully
accomplished their task. Marianus
Scotus, and the most learned of his
followers and compatriots were
merely Benedictine monks in Ger-
many, like all others on the Con-
tinent. They perhaps devoted them-
selves with more fervor to the work
of transcribing the lives of the
saints, and other pious books, than
did their German brethren, and if
some few of them quitted their own
cloisters to enter a German mon-
astery, they invariably isettled down
to a secluded and contemplative
life.

In the thirteenth century a general
and perceptible deterioration took
place in all monastic life. Why
should these foreigners whose insti-

I04 The Irish Element in

tutions at this, the time of their
highest prosperity, were already
governed by the most rigid asceti-
cism, and who were perfectly con-
scious of living as strangers in the
land (and for this very reason of less
importance as educators in Germany
than the contemporary German
monasteries), be expected to escape
the universal degeneracy ? But there
is cm additional cause to account for
the more rapid decline of the Irish
monasteries than of the German ones
of that part of the country.

Toward the end of the twelfth
century (i 171), began the subjugation
of Ireland by the English. It is a
well-known fact that in 11 54, Pope
Hadrian IV. issued a bull presenting
Ireland to the King of England, in
consideration of the payment of a
certain sum of tribute money, because
the slight degree of independence
assumed and maintained by the

Medicsval Culture. 105

Irish Church in regard to the Church
of Rome was to the latter a thorn
in the flesh, and not to be endured.
The conquest of Ireland by the
English, together with the existence
of certain social evils, destroyed the
real independence of its people,
and, as a consequence, of the Irish
Church.' The monks who now
sought an abiding-place on the Con-
tinent — ^the aftergrowth of the old
movement — no longer forsook their
native land, as did Columbanus, to
carry Christianity to the heathen;

' "It was a remarkable feature in the early
evangelization of the Celtic race that it was origi-
nally far more independent of the influence of
Rome than any of the German tribes were. In
England the influence of the Irish and Scotch
missions, though greatly thwarted by the preten-
sions of Rome, predominated in the north ;
while the authority of Rome was acknowledged
in southern England. The Roman power
gained the ascendancy only after a long struggle ;
bnt in Ireland especially, it was long before it
was entirely established."

io6 The Irish Element in

or, like Dungal, to instruct youth
eager for scientific knowledge ; or
again, like Marianus and his col-
leagues, to exchange the transitory
for the eternal by means of a holy
life, far from home and kindred, but
to live in material comfort and
abundance, to be able to lead a life
of worldly freedom. (Propter abun-
dantiam et propter liberam. voluntatem
Vivendi.)

Intemperance is, even at the pres-
ent day, Ireland's besetting sin.
Sedulius Scotus himself, when in-
structor at Lifege, acknowledges his
love for the cup, in his invocations
to the Muses, and among his poetical
panegyrics is one addressed to a cer-
tain Robertus, who, rich in the pos-
session of extensive vineyards, well
understood, according to Sedulius,
how to " awaken genius through the
inspiration of the heavenly dew."
Intemperance came to be, in fact.

MedicBvcd CultuVe. 107

the most prominent vice of the
Irish monks of the numerous Ger-
man monasteries. A satirical poem
of the thirteenth century, by Nicolaus
von Bibera, describes the orgies of
some Irish monks of Erfurt, who
boasted that Brendan was the brother
of Christ, and St. Brigit his mother,
drawing their logical conclusions
thereto from the Holy Scriptures
themselves, and in such a way as to
show conclusively that they had in-
dulged too freely in the "heavenly
dew."

At the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury, and later, these Irish monks, at
a certain tavern in Nuremberg, held
frequent and disgraceful orgies,
drinking to such excess that they
were often quite incapable of read-
ing mass the next morning. In
Vienna, they openly kept up their
revels, pawned their chalices and
vestments, as well as their chapel

io8 The Irish Element in

bells. Those who engaged in any
occupation at all, took up trading in
furs and other goods, so that the
term " Irish monk " (Scoti) became
synonymous with that of trader or
pedlar.

The fate of their institutions was
sealed. Some of them, like that of
Oels, for example, came to an end
through their own inherent weak-
ness; others, like those of Vienna,
Wurzburg, and Eichstadt were made
over to German monks, and in the
Reformation lost, like that of Nurem-
berg, their monastic character. The
mother monastery of St. James of
Ratisbon underwent a most extra-
ordinary transformation. During the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
truth was not understood, that, by
the Irish or "Scots" were meant,
from the earliest mediaeval times,
that nation alone which inhabited
Ireland, and of which only a small

Medieeval Culture. 109

portion had wandered to the north-
western part of Britain, with which
nation they became really incorpo-
rated, being now called Scotchmen,
and their country being considered
as thoroughly anglicized. The
Scotch taking advantage of this,
maintained on the ground of the
designation (monasterium Scotorum)
that the Scotch were the real found-
ers of these institutions, and that
the Irish had gradually and unlaw-
fully intruded themselves into those
monasteries, — Whence their downfall.
So in 1 5 15, St. James was given to
the Scotch by Leo. X., and all the
Irish monks still living there were
driven out.

This monastery, at the time of the
Reformation, made a desperate effort
in opposition to it, by assembling
within its walls many able Scotch-
men who were known to be inimical
to the movement. But the charac-

no The Irish Element in

teristics of those later monks that
lived here in the eighteenth century
are often alluded to in the accounts
of another Benedictine monastery of
that time. In the year 171 1 , a Scotch
Benedictine monk from the mon-
astery of St. James of Ratisbon,
by the name of Ambrosius Rosius,
visited the monastery of Rheinau,
and enjoyed its hospitality for a
sojourn of several weeks. In this
same monastery of Rheinau, where
Findan had lived as an anchorite from
856 to 878, was preserved a copy of
the Vita of Findan, before alluded
to, with those celestial communica-
tions in the ancient Scotch, that is to
say Irish, dialect. It is easily under-
stood why the inmates of Rheinau
should warmly welcome a guest who
could unravel to them the meaning
of those supernatural responses.
These monks had as little under-
standing as any of that time, of

MedicBval Culture. in

the very slight connection between
these Scoti of Ratisbon and those
monks and apostles of the seventh,
eighth, and ninth centuries men-
tioned in the manuscripts of that
time as Scoti. Ambrosius Rosius
probably spoke the language of
Ramsay and Bums, that is the
Scotch dialect of the English, which
corresponded about as fully with
that of Findan's voices from heaven,
as that of the Isle de France of the
early part of the eighteenth century
resembled the language in which the
" Gospel Harmonies " of Otfried
von Weissenburg' were written.
However, the Scotch brother from
Ratisbon showed his gratitude to the
monks of Rheinau for the generous
hospitality he had received by de-
ceiving them in the most shameless

' Otfried von Weissenburg, the Alsatian poet
and author, was educated at Fulda, and produced
his " Gospel Harmonies" in the year 868.

112 The Irish Element in

fashion. He informed them that
those ancient communications really
signified : ego debeo deo obtemperare
et non tentationibus ■maligni spiritus.

St. James of Ratisbon was secular-
ized in i860.

Although in the first century of
the existence of this Scotch mon-
astery, a few able men are to be
found as inmates of it, the institu-
tion exercised no influence worth
mentioning upon the general culti-
vation of the German people of that
region, and may be considered as
but a small contributor toward medi-
aeval culture in general ; for the only
share that the Scotch monks can
really claim in a monument like that
of the church of St. James of Ratis-
bon, is the fact of their having col-
lected the gold for its erection from
the pockets of the Germans.

In comparison with these, how
noble appear to us those apostles

MedicBval Culture. 113

from Ireland, of whom we find so
many traces in different parts of the
kingdom of the Franks, from the
beginning of the seventh to the
end of the tenth century. We
must go back to them for a few
moments,. in order to gauge them, or
rather the culture which they repre-
sent, according to the acknowledged
standards of our present civilization.
The two monasteries which we
should consider as the true represen-
tatives of Irish culture on the Conti-
nent, even though the non-Irish ele-
ment may be found to have been
predominant in both, are Bobio, Col-
umbanus' institution in Lombardy,
and St. Gall, founded by his colleague
Gallus in the country of the Ale-
manni. We are so fortunate as to
be enabled to judge of the actual
value of the libraries of both insti-
tutions at the close of the tenth
century from old book-catalogues

114 The Irish Element in

of both which have survived, and
which were made in the ninth and
tenth centuries. In .Bobio the gen-
eral library of the monastery at
the end of the tenth, consisted of
700 volumes, comprising about 460
manuscripts of which the donor's
name is not stated ; and over 220
volumes presented to the monastery
by different scholars of the ninth
century, 40 of them being the gift of
Dungal.

St. Gall possessed in the first half
of the ninth century 428 volumes, to
which 70 more were added under
the Abbot Grimald, besides 35 pre-
sented by him (841-872) ; so at the
end of the ninth century there were
533 volumes, 9 of them being palimp-
sests. When, in these days, large
private libraries are incorporated into
public ones, they are either catalogued
and numbered differently from the
rest, or a label or slip is pasted

Medicevcd Culture. 1 1 5

inside the covers of the odd volumes
giving the name of the donor and
former owner. Now, when it is
known that the catalogue of Bobio
enumerates 40, volumes given by
Dungal, 32 by the presbyter Theo-
dore, and 4 by Brother Adelbert,
and that St. Gall possesses 35 manu-
scripts which the Abbot Grimald gave
from his own private library, it fol-
lows that the most learned of the
monks possessed, as a matter of
course, their own private collections
of choice works, which many of them
bequeathed to the general library of
the monastery. •

With this wealth of manuscripts,
the relative value of the contents of
the, two libraries may be considered
about equal. Both these monasteries
possess whatever was treasured and
preserved of those writings, both
religious and secular, of the most
prominent scholars of the ninth and

1 1 6 The Irish Element in

tenth centuries. Beside theology
taken in its broadest sense, the secu-
lar sciences were cultivated, as, for
instance, grammar, metrics, astrono-
my, and medicine, as well as the best
models of classical literature. In the
library at Bobio we find copies of
Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, Mar-
tial, Persius, ' Terence, Cicero, De-
mosthenes, and Aristotle.

It is a well-known fact that when
the holy fathers went to the Council
of Constance taking no manuscripts
with them, they had recourse to
what the rich library of St. Gall
could furnish them, and that when
the council broke up (141 8), very
many of these pious men omitted
or neglected to return those valuable
old theological works in Latin and
Greek. Not less serious was the ad-

' Persius (Flaccus), was bom in 34 and died
in 62 A.D. He was mostly distinguished as a
satirist.

Medieevcd Culture. 117

ditional loss sustained by the library
of St. Gall in another direction. In
the summer of 1416, Poggio, the
Florentine, and two scholarly friends,
who had been, engaged with the
council, left Constance for St. Gall,
where, having a season of leisure,
they undertook a thorough search
for some missing volumes of Cicero,
Livy, and others. Their expecta-
tions were not disappointed, accord-
ing to the letters they wrote to learn-
ed friends in Italy. Among others
there were the well-known "Argo-
nauticon " of Flaccus, copies of eight
of Cicero's orations with commenta-
ries by Asconius Pedianus, ' works of
the famous Roman architect Vitru-
vius, who lived in the reign of Au-
gustus, 30 B.C., of Priscian, Quinc-

' Asconius Pedianus, the learned grammarian
of Padua (30-60 A.D.), died during the reign of
Comitian. His commentaries on Cicero are of
much value.

1 18 The Irish Element in

tilian, Lucretius, and other great
scholars. With the connivance of
the abbot those precious manuscripts
of classical literature were slipped
into two wagons, carried to Con-
stance, and from there into Italy,
whence none of them were ever re-
turned to St. Gall. And yet, in spite
of all these losses, St. Gall still pos-
sesses a wealth of manuscripts, dat-
ing from the seventh to the eleventh
century, in the way of works upon
patristic theology, and of both classi-
cal and German antiquity.

It is no more true that the inmates
of these two monasteries were, from
the eighth to the twelfth century,
exclusively Irish, or even that the
Irish element greatly predominated
in them, than that those invaluable
manuscripts were all written by
Irishmen, which they certainly were
not. Still the works serve to repre-
sent the degree of culture attained

Mediaeval Ctdture. 119

by the Irish monks on the Continent
during that period.

One circumstance must not be lost
sight of in estimating the actual claim
of the Irish monks as contributors to
the literary treasures possessed by
Bobio, St. Gall, Reichenau, and other
monasteries. The Latin alphabet
in use in Ireland in those times differs
in many particulars from that in
common use on the Continent, so
that, as we have before observed, a
Latin manuscript written by an Irish
scholar; can be easily distinguished
from one written by a continental
hand. It is evident that those writ-
ten by the Irish monks would pre-
sent difficulties to the ordinary stu-
dent on the Continent, and be an
obstacle to a rapid comprehension
of the same. This circumstance
had important results. Those Irish
monks who studied in the continen-
tal monasteries naturally tried, as far

1 20 The Irish Element in

as possible, to accustom themselves
to the forms of the letters most
generally used on the Continent ; of
this we have the strongest evidence.
The whole mass of documents that
we have seen, which were written by
Moengal at St. Gall between 853
and 860, are undoubtedly originals
and in the customary dialect and
handwriting used in the middle por-
tion of the ninth century, without the
slightest traces of the so-called Scot-
tish script ; and those copies of the
Epistles of St. Paul, (Codex 1247) to
be seen at Vienna, which Marianus
Scotus wrote in Ratisbon between
the 23d of March and the 17th of
May, 1079, are written, as I can state
upon the authority of my own eyes,
in the minuscule, the small handwrit-
ing peculiar to the Franks of that
period, while his foot-notes and com-
ments are written in the Irish way.
Marianus used the Irish characters

Mediceval Culture. 121

without doubt merely for his own
private accommodation. This fact
shows that very many of the manu-
scripts, ostensibly the work of con-
tinental scholars, may have been
transcribed by Irish monks; and,
regarding the manuscripts written in
the genuine Irish manner, there is
great probability of their having been
brought with them from Ireland,
there being no positive proof what-
ever of their having been of conti-
nental origin.

Moreover, those documents which
were written in Ireland and carried
to the Continent fell into disuse just
as soon as they had been copied in
any continental monastery. The
fact seems to me in this connection
not without significance, that in the
old catalogue of St. Gall, drawn up
in the ninth century, are enumerated
30 volumes in Irish script (libri scot-
tice scripti), and then is added, " A

122 TJie Irish Element in

short list of the books belonging to
the monastery of St. Gall (breviarium
librorum de ccenobio sancti Galli con-
fessoris Christi) "; by this we assume
that the former are undoubtedly veri-
fied as being those not in general use.
In after times, when not only every
connection between the monasteries
of St. Gall, Reichenau, and Bobio
with Ireland was severed, but also
because by reason of the general
degeneracy of monastic life, real in-
terest in and desire for the former
peaceful life of the cloister had quite
died out with the monks of these
monasteries, the books written in
Irish met with a still more disastrous
fate. At St. Gall, at least, their value
seems to have been estimated chiefly
according to the condition of the
parchment they were written upon ;
and in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries the oldest manuscripts, in-
cluding of course those written by

Medi(zval Culture. 123

the Irish, found their way into the
workshops of the bookbinders. At
St. Gall, early in the present century,
six volumes of extracts were collect-
ed together, consisting of fragments
and stray sheets from older manu-
scripts. Of the thirty volumes vwitten
by the Irish monks in the middle of
the ninth century, -only one remains,
and but four of those of later date,
while there are ten fragments or
single leaves of manuscripts in the
Irish character to be found at St.
Gall.

In other places the books written
by the Irish apparently met with a
similar fate, for in this century such
fragments have been occasionally met
with in the various libraries on the
Continent, and single stray leaves
from volumes dating from the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries. Libri
scottice scripti, both in the last and
in the present century, have been

1 24 The Irish Element in

brought to England, having been
purchased or accidentally brought
to light in some other way, as may
possibly occur in rare instances.

It would be most interesting to
know, after all these losses, what speci-
mens may still be found on the Conti-
nent of those Irish manuscripts dating
from the seventh to the eleventh cen-
tury. The result of such a search
would necessarily be somewhat un-
satisfactory ; still, from what I have
myself seen of the Irish manuscripts,
extracts, arid single leaves of that
time, which are undoubtedly authen-
tic, and from all that I can learn
about them, I am led to the suppo-
sition that there must be at least two
hundred of them in existence, and
among these there are thirty-three
which contain more or less important
articles of varying length, written in
the Irish language exclusively, which
actually date from that period. The

Mediceval Culture. 125

contents of the scanty remnants of
earlier manuscripts possess also con-
siderable value, not to mention the
fact that Zeuss ' gleaned from them
the materials for his grammar of the
ancient Irish language and laid the
foundation of Celtic philology.

In the department of Biblical lit-
erature I will recall but two important
examples: the Gospel Codex at St.
Gall, written in Greek with a trans-
lation in Latin, and the Codex Boer-
nerianus, now to be found in Dres-
den, which contains the Epistles of
St. Paul in Greek, together with an
interlinear Latin version of the same.
Both of these works date from as early
a period as the ninth century, and

'Johann Kaspar Zeuss, the famous historian
and philologist, was born in 1806. In 1839 he
became Professor of History at Spires, and in
1847 Professor of the Lyceum at Bamberg, where
he produced his ckef-d'ceuvre " Grammatica
Celtica " (1853), published at Leipsic. He died
in 1856.

1 26 The Irish Element in

the last contains a passage in the
ancient Irish dialect which expresses
the harshest possible sentence upon
Rome at that time :

A pilgrimage to Rome demands
strenuous effort, with but meagre ad-
vantage. If thou findest not the Heav-
enly King thou seekest, in thine own
country, or carry Him not with thee,
thou wilt never find him there (Rome).
It is all folly, madness, delusion, frenzy :
to go on a pilgrimage to Rome is to
court death and destruction, and to
draw down upon thee the wrath of the
Lord.

Among other Irish manuscripts of
interest and value to the classical
philologist there is now to be found
in Berne one precious volume, written
in Ireland at the end of the eighth or
beginning of the ninth century, which
contains commentaries and annota-

Medieevcd Cidture. 127

tions on Virgil, Horace, and Ovid,
beside rhetorical disquisitions and
one of Bede's works. This volume
was most probably carried to the
Continent by Dungal, and was used
in Pavia as a text-book. Of the
grammarian Priscian we have seen
three specimens — at St. Gall, Ley-
den, and Carlsruhe (earlier at Reich-
enau), and one fragment at Milan,
from Bobio, as well as an authentic
Irish recension of them. All these
manuscripts, quite independent of
each other, and yet of common ori-
gin, were produced in Ireland in the
first half of the ninth centuiy, and
finally appeared on the Continent.'

In conclusion, we can form, in fact,
from the preceding sketches, a com-

' At Basle there are three manuscripts in the
town library, one of them being a beautiful Irish
psalter, with a hymn in praise of Bridget and
Patrick.

128 The Irish Element in

plete representation of Ireland's part
in the development of general cul-
ture, from the seventh to the eleventh
century.

The German tribes combining to-
gether had finally succeeded, after
many vain onslaughts, in undermin-
ing the Roman Empire by mere brute
force. The conquerors willingly
accepted what ancient culture they
found established in the lands
they had become masters of, but not
being capable of carrying it on, they
dragged those vanquished Roman
provinces down with them into the
quagmires of barbarism into which,
at the end of the sixth century, the
whole West seems to have been
hopelessly sunk.

Only on the " Emerald Isle " had
ancient culture found a secure foot-
ing and an asylum ; here bloomed
and flourished a Christianity which
swayed the hearts and minds of the

Medicsval Culture. 129

people, — a Christianity which was
not consciously in opposition to that
of Rome, but at the same time was
quite independent of the Roman
hierarchy and of Roman intolerance ;
and the supporters of this religion,
the priestly leaders of the people,
held firmly to the doctrines of the
great fathers of the Church, Ambro-
sius and Augustine, with equal rev-
erence for the ancient classics.

Such was the country which sent
forth numerous apostles at the end
of the sixth century and at the be-
ginning of the seventh, to settle in the
Merovingian kingdom of the Franks
and among other German tribes, to
establish missionary stations in which
the noblest secular culture was fos-
tered in conjunction with Christian-
ity. The Carlovingian kingdom was
fully converted from heathenism at
the time that these Irish scholars
came there and labored strenuously

130 The Irish Element in

to spread among the various Ger-
man and Roman peoples the most
precious treasures of classical learn-
ing, in the spirit of an enlightened
Christianity.

The opinion of the most able
writer on the Carlovingian period, in
regard to one representative of that
time (Dummler's article on Alcuin in
the " General German Biography "),
may, with some modifications, be
held, concerning all these men — viz. :
that, among them all, not one was
distinguished for remarkable origi-
nality, with the single exception of
Johannes Scotus Erigena, and that
the reputation of having opened up
strictly new paths to knowledge can-
not certainly be claimed for them.
However, they were instructors in
every known branch of science and
learning of the time, possessors and
bearers of a higher culture than was
at that period to be found anywhere

Medicsval Culture. 131

on the Continent, and can surely
claim to have been the pioneers, — to
have laid the corner-stone of Western
culture on the Continent, the rich
results of which Germany shares and
enjoys to-day, in common with all
other civilized nations.

Index.

Aedan, So

Agilberct, 43

Agricola on the conquest of Ireland, 12

Alcuin, 44 ; on Irish monks, 30, 32

Aldhelm, 37, 41

Anagratum, or Annegray, 21, 26 «.

Anchorites, 88 k.

Anglo-Saxon art confounded with Irish, 16 «.

Anglo-Saxons frequent Irish monasteries, 36, 41

Animcliad, 86

Arbogast the Younger, 7

Ausonins, 7

Aventinus, 98 «.

Bangor, monastery of, 21, 23 «,

Baptism, 34

Basilicas, 47 n.

Bavaria, Irish monks in, 31

Bobio, monasteiy of, 18 k., 53 ; founded by

Columbanus, 23, 28 n. ; its library, 1 14
Boniface or Winfrid, 35
Bregenz, 22

133

1 34 Index.

Cams, abbot at Nuremberg, lOO

Cataldus, St., 32 «.

Charlemagne, the patron of learning, 43 ; the
Irish scholars in his court, 44

Christianity, the debt of civilization to, 4 ; its
history in the second to fourth centuries, 6

Claudius, Bishop of Turin, 10

Clemens, an Irish scholar, 50

Colman, 20, 31, 32 «., 41

Columba founds the monastery on lona, 19 ; his
life by Sedulius, 62 «. / his diligence in
writing, 79 «.

Columbanus, 20 «. / his labors in the Vosges,
21 ; difficulties with the Gallic clergy, 22 ;
at Bregenz and Bobio, 23, 28 ». / his learn-
ing and life, 24 «. / his death, 29 «. / his
objects, 101

Crosses in Ireland, 50 n.

Cruindmel, 62

D

Dagobert, 30

David, 87

Declan, Irish abbot in Nuremberg, 100

Dicuil, 54

Dobda, 63

Dubdachrich, 63

Dubwin, 84

Dungal, 10, 52, 114, 127

Easter controversy, 38 ».
Ecgberct, 36

Index. 135

Edilhun, 36

Eichstadt, 108

Erfurt, 107

Erigena, Johannes Scotus, 57, 59, 82

Erlebald, abbot of Reichenau, 65

Faroe Islands mentioned by Dicuil, 55

Fiacra, St., 32 ».

Findan, 63, 113

Fingan, abbot of Metz, 86

Finnan, 20

Fontaines, 22, 28 n.

France in the sixth century, 24 «.

Franks, their kingdom in the sixth century,

attracted to Ireland by her learning, 42
Fredegonde, 26 «.
Fridolin, 32
Frieslanders, Irish influence upon, 32

Gallus (St. Gall), his missionary work, 24
Gettweich, monastery of, 94
Gregory the Great, Pope, 10
Gregory of Tours, 9

H

Hassenkamp, on early Ireland, i
Hewald, 32

Iceland, mentioned by Dicuil, 55 ; Irish monks
in, 56

136

Index.

lUumination of Irish manuscripts, 16 «., 75 «.,
87 «.

lona, Ig

Ireland, mistaken view of Hassenkamp and of
English writers on its eariy history, I ; its
glorious past, 3 ; Dr. Reeves on its early
importance, 11 n. ; its conquest recom-
mended by Agricola, 12 ; its unsubdued
Celtic tribes the pioneers of missionary
effort, 13 ; the inhabitants called Scots, 14 ;

Irish art confounded with Anglo-Saxon art, 16 «./
its sources and history, 17 ».

Irish church, its independent position, 38 ; dis-
pleasing to Rome, 104

Irish illumination, 16 «., 74, 75 «., 87 n.

Irish manuscripts, 99 ; distinguished from Con-
tinental, 119 ; their fate, 122

Irish monasteries, the early establishments, 17 ;
their culture and learning, 19 ; the mission-
ary impulse, 19, 56 ; the foundations on
the Continent, 2g ; frequented by Anglo-
Saxons, 36 ; and by Franks, 42 ; Oriental
origin of Irish monasticism, 89 n.

Irish monks and missionaries, their persona]
appearance and manner of life, 33 ; their
decline after the seventh century, 42 «. ; in
Iceland, 56 ; at St. Gall, 70 ; in the ninth
century, 83 ; in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, 85 ; in Germany in the eleventh
to thirteenth centuries, 97 ; distinguished
from their predecessors, loi ; their decline,
104 ; their intemperance, 106 ; of seventh
to tenth centuries among the Franks, 113

Irish music, 75

Irish scholars welcomed in France, 45

Irish sculpture, 50 «.

Italy in the sixth century, 10

Index. 137

J

Johannes Scotus Erigena, 57, 59, 82

Jonas of Bobio, 31

Joseph, a friend of Alcuin's, 46

K

Kataldus, St., 56
Kilian, 31, 32 «., 87 «.

L
Luxovium, orLuxeuil, 21, 28 »., 31

M

Macarius, abbot of Wiirzburg, 100

Malmsbuiy, monastery of, 37

Marcellus, or Moengal, 72, 120

Marcus, Irish bishop, 72

Marianus Scotus, 85, 86, 88 «., 90, 120 ; his

manuscripts, 92 »., 98
Moengal or Marcellus, 72, 120
Monastidsm, its decline, 103

N

Notker, 73
Nuremberg, 100

Oels, Irish monastery a, 108
Otfried von Weissenburg, in

138 Index.

V

Palladius sent by Rome to the Scots (Irish), 14

Pantaleon, St., 86

Papar, the Irish anchorites in Iceland, 56 n.

Patemus, 86

Poggio at St. Gall, 117

R

Ratgar of Fulda, 51, 66

Ratisbon, Marianus Scotus and his followers in,
92 ; other monasteries the outgrowth of, 94 ;
the monastery of St. James made over to
the Scotch, 108

Ratpert, 73

Reeves, £)r. , on Ireland, 11 11.; on Irish mis-
sionaries, 32 n.

Reichenau, monastery of, 65

Rheinau, monastery of, 64 ; visit of Ambrosius
Rosius to, no

Roman Empire, decline of, 7

Rosius, Ambrosius, of Ratisbon, no

Round towers, 46 «.

S

St. Gall, monastery of, foundation, 26 ; its books
transferred to Reichenau, 68 ; its connection
with Ireland, 70 ; its library, 114 ; its cata-
logue, 121

Saxons, Irish influence upon, 32

Scots of the Middle Ages, Irishmen, 14 n.

Sedulius Scotus, 60, 75, 106

Sintram, 75

Index. 1 39

Skribentium, 95
Steinacthal, 26

TheoduU, 47
Tonsure, 40 n.
Totman, 31
Tuotilo, 73, 75

V

Victberct, 32, 36

Vienna, Irish monastery in, 107, 108

Virgil, bishop of Salzburg, 62

W

Wilibrord, apostie of Friesland, 32
Winfrid or Boniface, papal legate, 35
Wratislaw, king of Bohemia, 95 «.
WOrzburg, icxj, 108