The Story of Ancient Irish Civilization Part 3

The students were of all cla.s.ses--rich and poor--from the sons of kings and chiefs down to the sons of farmers, tradesmen, and labourers; young laymen for general education, as well as ecclesiastical students for the priesthood. All those who had the means paid their way in everything. But there were some who were so poor that they could pay little or nothing: and these 'poor scholars' (as they afterwards came to be called) received teaching, books, and often food, all free. But most of even the poorest did their best to pay something; and in this respect it is interesting to compare the usages of those long past times with some features of the college life of our own days. In some of the present American universities there is an excellent custom which enables very poor students to support themselves and pay their college fees. They wait on their richer comrades, bring up the dishes, etc., from the kitchen for meals, and lay the tables: and when the meal is over, they remove everything, wash up dishes and plates, and put them all by in their proper places. In fact, they perform most of the work expected from ordinary servants. For this they receive food and some small payment, which renders them independent of charity.

And the pleasing feature of this arrangement is, that it is not attended with any sense of humiliation or loss of self-respect. During study and lecture hours these same young men, having put by ap.r.o.ns and napkins, and donned their ordinary dress, are received and treated on terms of perfect equality by those they have served, who take on no airs, and do not pose as superiors, but mix with them in free and kindly intercourse as fellow-students and comrades.

All this was antic.i.p.ated in Ireland more than a thousand years ago; for a similar custom existed in some of the old Irish colleges. The very poor students often lived with some of their richer brethren, and acted as their servants, for which they received food and other kinds of payment.

Many of these youths who served in this humble capacity subsequently became great and learned men, as indeed we might expect, for boys of this stamp are made of the best stuff; and some of them are now famed in our records as eminent fathers of the ancient Irish Church.

The greatest number of the students lived in houses built by themselves, or by hired workmen--some, mere huts, each for a single person; some, large houses, for several: and all around the central college buildings there were whole streets of these houses, often forming a good-sized town.

Where there were large numbers great care was taken that there should be no confusion or disorder. The whole school was commonly divided into sections, over each of which was placed a leader or master, whose orders should be obeyed: and over the whole college there was one head-master or princ.i.p.al, usually called a _Fer-leginn_, i.e., 'Man of learning': while the abbot presided over all--monastery and college. The Fer-leginn was always some distinguished man--of course a great scholar. He was generally a monk, but sometimes a layman; for those good monks selected the best man they could find, whether priest or layman.

I suppose those who are accustomed to the grand universities and colleges of the present day, with their palatial buildings, would feel inclined to laugh at the simple, rough-and-ready methods and appliances of the old Irish colleges. There were no comfortable study rooms, well furnished with desks, seats, and rostrums: no s.p.a.cious lecture halls. The greater part of the work, indeed, was carried on in the open air when the weather at all permitted. At study time the students went just where they pleased, and accommodated themselves as best they could. All round the college you would see every flowery bank, every scented hedgerow, every green glade and sunny hillock occupied with students, sitting or lying down, or pacing thoughtfully, each with his precious ma.n.u.script book open before him, all poring over the lesson a.s.signed for next lecture, silent, attentive, and earnest.[3]

Then the little handbell tinkled for some particular lecture, and the special students for this hurried to their places, and seated themselves as best they could--on chair, stool, form, stone, or bank, and opened their books. These same books, too, were a motley collection--some large, some small, some fresh from the scribe, some tattered and brown with age: but all most carefully covered and preserved; for they were very expensive. You now buy a good school copy of some cla.s.sical author for, say, half-a-crown: at that time it would probably cost what was equivalent to 2 of our present money.

Then the master went over the text, translating and explaining it, and whenever he thought it necessary questioned his pupils, to draw them out.

After this he had to stand the cross-fire of the students' questions, who asked him to explain all sorts of difficulties: for this was one of the college regulations. There were no grammars, no dictionaries, no simple introductory lesson books, such as we have now. The students had to go straight at the Latin or Greek text, and where they failed to make sense, the master stepped in with his help. And in this rugged and difficult fashion they mastered the language.

Yet it was in rude inst.i.tutions of this kind that were educated those men whose names became renowned all over Europe, and who--for the period when they lived--are now honoured as among the greatest scholars and missionaries that the world ever saw.

The great Irish colleges were, in fact, universities in the full sense of the word, that is to say, schools which taught the whole circle of knowledge: they were, indeed, in a great measure the models on which our present universities were formed. The Latin and Greek languages and literatures were studied and taught with success. In science the Irish scholars were famous for their knowledge of Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Music, Geography, and so forth. And they were equally eminent in sacred learning--Theology, Divinity, and the Holy Scriptures.

The schools proved their mettle by the scholars they educated and sent forth: scholars who astonished all Europe in their day. Sedulius of the fifth century (whose name is still represented by the family name Shiel), an eminent divine, orator, and poet, travelled into France, Italy, Greece, and Asia, and composed some beautiful Latin hymns, which are still used in the services of the Church. 'Fergil the Geometer' went in 745 from his monastery of Aghaboe in Queen's County to France, where he became famous for his deep scientific learning, and where he taught publicly--and probably for the first time--that the earth is round, having people living on the other side. John Scotus Erigena ('John the Irish-born Scot') of the ninth century taught in Paris; he was the greatest Greek scholar of his time, and was equally eminent in Theology. St. Columba.n.u.s of Bobbio (in Italy), a Leinsterman, a pupil of the college of Bangor, proved himself, while in France and Italy, a master of many kinds of learning, and was one of the greatest, most fearless, and most successful of the Irish missionaries on the Continent.

These men, and scores of others that we cannot find s.p.a.ce for here, spread the fame of their native country everywhere. It was no wonder that the people of Great Britain and the Continent, when they met such scholars, all from Ireland, came to the conclusion that the schools which educated them were the best to be found anywhere. Accordingly, students came from all parts of the known world, to place themselves under the masters of these schools. From Germany, France, Italy, Egypt, came priests and laymen, princes, chiefs, and peasant students--all eagerly seeking to drink from the fountain of Irish learning. And let us bear in mind that in those days it was a far more difficult, dangerous, and tedious undertaking to travel to Ireland from the interior of the European Continent, than it is now to go to Australia or China. But even in much greater numbers than these came students from Great Britain. An English writer of that period, who was jealous of the Irish schools and in very bad humour with his countrymen for coming to them, is nevertheless forced to admit that Englishmen came to Ireland "in fleetloads." In our Histories of Ireland we have read of the real Irish welcome they received--as recorded by the Venerable Bede and by others--and how the Irish, not only taught them, but gave them books and food for nothing at all! It was quite a common thing that young Englishmen, after they had learned all that their own schools were able to teach them, came to Ireland to finish their education.

The more the students crowded to the Irish schools, whether from Ireland itself or from abroad, the more eagerly did the masters strive to meet the demand, by studying more and more deeply the various branches of learning, so as to equal or excel the scholars of other countries. Then Ireland became the most learned country in Europe, so that it came at last to be known everywhere as 'The Island of Saints and Scholars.'

CHAPTER VII.

HOW IRISH MISSIONARIES AND SCHOLARS SPREAD RELIGION AND LEARNING IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

Towards the end of the sixth century the great body of the Irish were Christians, so that the holy men of Ireland were able to turn their attention to the conversion of other people. Then arose an extraordinary zeal for spreading religion and learning in foreign lands; and hundreds of devoted and determined missionaries left our sh.o.r.es. There was ample field for their n.o.ble ambition. For these were the Dark Ages, when the civilisation and learning bequeathed by old Greece and Rome had been almost wiped out of existence by the barbarous northern hordes who overran Europe; and Christianity had not yet time to spread its softening influence among them. Through the greater part of England and Scotland, and over vast regions of the Continent, the teeming populations were fierce and ignorant, and sunk in gross superst.i.tion and idolatry, or with little or no religion at all.

To begin with the Irish missionary work in Great Britain. The people of Northern and Western Scotland, who were solidly pagan till the sixth century, were converted by St. Columkille and his monks from Iona, who were all Irishmen; for Iona was an Irish monastic colony founded by St.

Columkille, a native of Tirconnell, now Donegal.

In the seven kingdoms of England--the Heptarchy--the Anglo-Saxons were the ruling race, rude and stubborn, and greatly attached to their gloomy northern pagan G.o.ds. We know that the kingdom of Kent was converted by the Roman missionary St. Augustine; but Christianity made little headway outside this till St. Aidan began his labours among the Northumbrian Saxons. Aidan was an Irishman who entered the monastery of Iona, from which he was sent to preach to the Northumbrians on the invitation of their good king, Oswald. He founded the monastery of Lindisfarne, which afterwards became so ill.u.s.trious. He was its first abbot; and for thirty years it was governed by him and by two other Irish abbots, Finan and Colman, in succession. He and his companions were wonderfully successful, so that the people of the large kingdom of Northumbria became Christians.

Not only in Northumberland but all over England we find at the present day evidences of the active labours of the Irish missionaries in Great Britain.

Whole crowds of ardent and learned Irishmen travelled on the Continent in the sixth, seventh, and succeeding centuries, spreading Christianity and secular knowledge everywhere among the people. On this point we have the decisive testimony of an eminent French writer of the ninth century, Eric of Auxerre, who himself witnessed what he records. In a letter written by him to Charles the Bald, king of France, he says:--"What shall I say of Ireland, who, despising the dangers of the deep, is migrating with almost her whole train of philosophers to our coasts?" And other foreign evidences of a like kind might be brought forward.

These men, on their first appearance on the Continent, caused much surprise, they were so startlingly different from those preachers the people had been accustomed to. They travelled on foot towards their destination in small companies, generally of thirteen. They wore a coa.r.s.e outer woollen garment, in colour as it came from the fleece, and under this a white tunic of finer stuff. The long hair behind flowed down on the back: and the eyelids were painted or stained black. Each had a long stout walking-stick: and slung from the shoulder a leathern bottle for water, and a wallet containing his greatest treasure--a book or two and some relics. They spoke a strange language among themselves, used Latin to those who understood it, and made use of an interpreter when preaching, until they had learned the language of the place.

Few people have any idea of the trials and dangers they encountered. Most of them were persons in good position, who might have lived in plenty and comfort at home. They knew well, when setting out, that they were leaving country and friends probably for ever; for of those that went, very few returned. Once on the Continent, they had to make their way, poor and friendless, through people whose language they did not understand, and who were in many places ten times more rude and dangerous in those ages than the inhabitants of these islands: and we know as a matter of history, that many were killed on the way. But these stout-hearted pilgrims were prepared for all this, and looking only to the service of their Master, never flinched. They were confident, cheerful, and self-helpful, faced privation with indifference, caring nothing for luxuries; and when other provisions failed them, they gathered wild fruit, trapped animals, and fished, with great dexterity and with any sort of next-to-hand rude appliances. They were somewhat rough in outward appearance: but beneath all that they had solid sense and much learning. Their simple ways, their unmistakable piety, and their intense earnestness in the cause of religion caught the people everywhere, so that they made converts in crowds.

A great French writer, Montalembert, speaks of the Irish of those days as having a "Pa.s.sion for pilgrimage and preaching," and as feeling "under a stern necessity of spreading themselves abroad to combat paganism, and carry knowledge and faith afar." They were to be found everywhere through Europe, even as far as Iceland and the Faroe and Shetland Islands. Europe was too small for their missionary enterprise. Many were to be found in Egypt; and as early as the seventh century, three learned Irish monks found their way to Carthage, where they laboured for a long time and with great success.

Wherever they went they made pilgrimages to holy places--places sanctified by memories of early saints--and whenever they found it practicable they were sure to make their way to Rome, to visit the shrines of the apostles, and obtain the blessing of the Pope.

The Irish "pa.s.sion for pilgrimage and preaching" never died out: it is a characteristic of the race. This great missionary emigration to foreign lands has continued in a measure down to our own day: for it may be safely a.s.serted that no other missionaries are playing so general and successful a part in the conversion of the pagan people all over the world, and in keeping alight the lamp of religion among Christians, as those of Ireland.

Irishmen were equally active in spreading secular knowledge. Indeed the two functions were generally combined; for it was quite common to find a man a successful missionary, while at the same time acting as professor in a college, or as head of some great seminary for general education. Irish professors and teachers were in those times held in such estimation that they were employed in most of the schools and colleges of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. The revival of learning on the Continent was indeed due in no small degree to those Irish missionaries. It was enough that the candidate for an appointment came from Ireland: he needed no other recommendation.

When learning had declined in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, owing to the devastations of the Danes, it was chiefly by Irish teachers it was kept alive and restored. In Glas...o...b..ry especially, they taught with great success. We are told by English writers that "they were skilled in every department of learning sacred and profane"; and that under them were educated many young English n.o.bles, sent to Glas...o...b..ry with that object. Among these students the most distinguished was St. Dunstan, who, according to all his biographers, received his education, both Scriptural and secular, from Irish masters there.

As for the numerous Continental schools and colleges in which Irishmen figured either as princ.i.p.als or professors, it would be impossible, with our limited s.p.a.ce, to notice them here. A few have been glanced at in the last chapter; and I will finish this short narrative by relating the odd manner in which two distinguished Irishmen, brothers, named Clement and Albinus,[4] began their career on the Continent.

One of the historians of the reign of Charlemagne, who wrote in the ninth century, has left us the following account of these two scholars:--When the ill.u.s.trious Charles began to reign alone in the western parts of the world, and literature was almost forgotten, it happened that two Scots from Ireland came over with some British merchants to the sh.o.r.es of France, men incomparably skilled in human learning and in the Holy Scriptures. Observing how the merchants exhibited and drew attention to their wares, they acted in a similar fashion to force themselves into notice like the others. They went through the market-place among the crowds, and cried out to them:--"If there be any who want wisdom (_i.e._, learning), let them come to us, for we have it to sell." This they repeated as they went from place to place, so that the people wondered very much; and some thought them to be nothing more than persons half crazed.

Strange rumours regarding them went round, and at length came to the ears of King Charles; on which he sent for the brothers, and had them brought to his presence. He questioned them closely, using the Latin language, and asked them whether it was really the case that they had learning; and they replied--in the same language--that they had, and were ready, in the name of G.o.d, to communicate it to those who sought it with worthy intentions.

Then the king asked what payment they would expect, and they replied:--"We require proper houses and accommodation, pupils with ingenious minds and really anxious to learn; and, as we are in a foreign country where we cannot conveniently work for our bread, we shall require food and raiment: we want nothing more."

Now at this very time King Charles was using his best efforts to restore learning, by opening schools throughout his dominions, but found it hard to procure a sufficient supply of qualified teachers. And as he perceived that these brothers were evidently men of real learning, and of a superior cast in every way, he joyfully accepted their proposals. Having kept them for some time on a visit in his palace, he finally opened a great school in some part of France--probably Paris--for the education of boys of all ranks of society, not only for the sons of the highest n.o.bles, but also for those of the middle and low cla.s.ses, at the head of which he placed Clement. He also directed that all the scholars should be provided with food and suitable habitations: it was in fact a great free boarding-school, founded and maintained at the expense of the king. As for Albinus, he sent him to Italy, with directions that he should be placed at the head of the important school of the monastery of St. Augustine at Pavia. And these schools are now remembered in history as two great and successful centres of learning belonging to those ages.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW THE ANCIENT IRISH WROTE DOWN ALL THEIR LITERATURE, AND HOW BOOKS INCREASED AND MULTIPLIED.

Printing was not invented till the fifteenth century, and before that time all books had of course to be written by hand.

According to our native records the art of writing was known to the pagan Irish, and the druids had books on law and other subjects, long before the time of St. Patrick. Besides these home evidences, which are so numerous and strong as hardly to admit of dispute, we have the testimony of a learned foreigner, which is quite decisive on the point. A Christian philosopher of the fourth century of our era, named Ethicus of Istria, travelled over the three continents, and has left a description of his wanderings, in what he calls a 'Cosmography' of the World. He visited Ireland more than a hundred years before the arrival of St. Patrick; and he states that he found there many books, and that he remained for some time in the country examining them. So far then as Ethicus records the existence of Irish books in the fourth century, he merely corroborates our own native accounts.

The pagan Irish books were, of course, written in the Irish language; but as to the nature or shapes of the letters, or the form of the writing, or how it reached Ireland, on these points we have no information, for none of the old books remain. The letters used in these books could hardly have been what are known as Ogham characters, for these are too c.u.mbrous for long pa.s.sages.

Ogham was a species of writing, the letters of which were formed by combinations of short lines and points, on and at both sides of a middle or stem line. Nearly all the Oghams. .h.i.therto found are sepulchral inscriptions. Great numbers of monumental stones are preserved with Ogham inscriptions cut on them, of which most have been deciphered, either partially or completely. They are in a very antique form of the Irish language; and while many were engraved in far distant pagan ages, others belong to Christian times.

But whatever characters the Irish may have used in times of paganism, they learned the Roman letters from the early Roman missionaries, and adopted them in writing their own language during and after the time of St.

Patrick: which are still retained in modern Irish. These same letters, moreover, were brought to Great Britain by the early Irish missionaries already spoken of (p. 52), from whom the Anglo-Saxons learned them; so that England received her first knowledge of the letters of the alphabet--as she received most of her Christianity--from Ireland. Formerly it was the fashion to call those letters Anglo-Saxon: but now people know better. Our present printed characters--the very characters now under the reader's eye--were ultimately developed from those old Irish-Roman letters.

After the time of St. Patrick, as everything seems to have been written down that was considered worth preserving, Ma.n.u.scripts acc.u.mulated in the course of time, which were kept in monasteries and in the houses of professors of learning: many also in the libraries of private persons. The most general material used for writing on was vellum or parchment, made from the skins of sheep, goats, or calves. To copy a book was justly considered a very meritorious work, and in the highest degree so if it was a part of the Holy Scriptures, or of any other book on sacred or devotional subjects. Scribes or copyists were therefore much honoured. The handwriting of these old doc.u.ments is remarkable for its beauty, its plainness, and its perfect uniformity; each scribe, however, having his own characteristic form and style.

Sometimes the scribes wrote down what had never been written before, that is, matters composed at the time, or preserved in memory; but more commonly they copied from other volumes. If an old book began to be worn, ragged, or dim with age, so as to be hard to make out and read, some scribe was sure to copy it, so as to have a new book easy to read and well bound up. Most of the books written out in this manner related to Ireland, as will be described presently; and the language of these was almost always Irish; except in copies of the Roman cla.s.sics or of the Scriptures, where Latin was used.

Books abounded in Ireland when the Danes first made their appearance, about the beginning of the ninth century; so that the old Irish writers often speak with pride of "the hosts of the books of Erin." But with the first Danish arrivals began the woeful destruction of ma.n.u.scripts, the records of ancient learning. The animosity of the barbarians was specially directed against books, monasteries, and monuments of religion: and all the ma.n.u.scripts they could lay hold on they either burned or "drowned"--_i.e._, flung them into the nearest lake or river. Next came the Anglo-Norman Invasion, which was quite as destructive of native books, learning, and art as the Danish inroads, or more so; and most of the old volumes that survived were scattered and lost.

Notwithstanding all this havoc and wreck, we have still preserved a large number of old Irish books. The ornamented and illuminated copies of the Scriptures are described in the chapter on Art. We have also many volumes of Miscellaneous Literature in which are written compositions of all kinds, both prose and poetry, copied from older books, and written in, one after another, till the volume was filled. Of all these old books of mixed compositions, the largest that remains to us is the Book of Leinster, which is kept in Trinity College, Dublin. It is an immense volume, all in the Irish language, written more than 750 years ago; and many of the pages are now almost black with age and very hard to make out.

It contains a great number of pieces, some in prose and some in verse, and nearly all of them about Ireland:--histories, accounts of battles and sieges, lives and adventures of great men, with many tales and stories of things that happened in this country in far distant ages.

The Book of the Dun Cow is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.

It is fifty years older than the Book of Leinster, but not so large; and it contains also a great number of tales, adventures, and histories, all relating to Ireland, and all in the Irish language.