Transcriber’s Notes:
A number of obvious typos have been corrected. Except for these
corrections, the spelling and punctuation of the book have not been
changed.
Underscores are used for italic markup; the three words that end this
sentence _are in italics_.
In the source book there are 539 footnotes numbered by chapter, so
that footnote number 1 is the first footnote in each chapter. In this
e-book the footnotes and their markers have been renumbered from 1 to
539 thus giving each footnote a unique marker that consists of a
number enclosed by square brackets. All the footnotes have been moved
to the end of the book where each footnote is headed by its marker.
THE EARLY IRISH
MONASTIC SCHOOLS
THE
EARLY IRISH
MONASTIC SCHOOLS
A STUDY OF IRELAND’S CONTRIBUTION
TO EARLY MEDIEVAL CULTURE
BY
HUGH GRAHAM, M.A.
_Professor of Education, College of St. Teresa,
Winona, Minnesota, U.S.A._
[Illustration]
DUBLIN
THE TALBOT PRESS LIMITED
85 TALBOT STREET
1923
PRINTED IN IRELAND
AT
THE TALBOT PRESS
DUBLIN
TO
IRISH TEACHERS
WHO,
TRUE TO THE TRADITIONS OF THEIR RACE,
SERVE HUMANITY IN MANY LANDS
BY LIVES CONSECRATED TO
RELIGION AND LEARNING
PREFACE
The aim of the present study is to give within reasonable limits a
critical and fairly complete account of the Irish Monastic Schools
which flourished prior to 900 A.D.
The period dealt with covering as it does the sixth, seventh, eighth,
and ninth centuries is one of the most obscure in the history of
education. In accordance with established custom writers are wont to
bewail the decline of learning consequent on the Fall of the Roman
Empire in the fifth century and then they pass on rapidly to the
Renaissance in the fifteenth; a few, however, pause to glance at the
Carolingian Revival of learning in the ninth century and to remark
parenthetically that learning was preserved in Ireland and a few
isolated places on the fringe of Roman Civilization, but with some
notable exceptions writers as a class have failed to realise that
as in other departments of human knowledge there is a continuity in
the history of education. The great connecting link between the
Renaissance and the Graeco-Roman culture which flourished in Western
Europe during the early centuries of our era is the Irish Monastic
Schools. Modern research clearly points to the conclusion that the
history of these schools is in reality a chapter in the history of
education in Western Europe. While we do not claim that the Irish
schools were the sole factor in the preservation and transmission of
letters during the Early Middle Ages we are certainly convinced that
they played a leading part. The cumulative evidence which we submit
amply warrants this conclusion.
The many tributes of a complimentary nature which scholars have
bestowed on the work of the Irish Monastic Schools would indicate that
the importance of their influence has not been overlooked; yet it seems
to us that their real aim and character have not always been clearly
understood. In a certain respect these schools were unique: they were
neither purely classical schools of the type that flourished in Gaul
in the fourth century, nor were they mere theological seminaries such
as existed in certain parts of Britain and the Continent that lay
outside the Irish sphere of influence. The peculiar character of the
Irish monastic school would appear to be the result of the harmonious
combination of three distinct elements: 1, Native Irish Culture; 2,
Christianity; 3, Graeco-Roman Culture. We believe that this conception
of Irish monastic culture furnishes the key to a proper understanding
of the real significance of Irish scholarship during the Early Middle
Ages. No study of Irish monastic schools which neglected to give
due consideration to the potent influence of each of these three
constituents would be adequate even if it were intelligible. The force
of this conviction which is the result of a prolonged and critical
examination of all the relevant material to hand has determined the
form which the present study has assumed.
The first and second chapters are not merely introductory: they
are fundamental. In the first chapter we discuss the question of a
pre-Christian and pre-classical native Irish culture. The second
chapter is devoted to an examination of that difficult problem, the
beginnings of classical learning in Ireland—a matter on which modern
research has thrown considerable light. As the school was so intimately
connected with the monastic system it was necessary to devote a special
chapter to an examination of the more salient features of Irish
monasticism which differed in many ways from Continental monasticism.
Here we are impressed with the fact that the native Irish ideals
blended with those of Christianity so as to give the Irish monastic
life a peculiarly national character which was ever reflected in the
educational aims and ideals of the Irish monk even when his missionary
zeal carried him far from the environment of his native land. In the
fourth chapter the attempt is made to determine the precise relation
which existed between the Irish monastic school and the general
educational situation not only in Ireland and Britain but in Western
Europe from 650 to 900 A.D. Those three great centres of intellectual
life in every Irish monastery—the school room, the scriptorium and the
library—are treated in the fifth chapter. The particular function of
each and its relation to the others is described while their combined
influence, whether of a contemporary or permanent nature, has been
noticed. The all-important question of the nature of the curriculum
has been critically examined in the sixth chapter. Finally, a chapter
is given to a discussion of the scope of Irish scholarship and its
significance in Mediæval Culture.
While a work of this nature can scarcely claim to be original and
the acknowledgments are too numerous to recount, yet the grouping
is new and not unfrequently facts have been presented from a new
angle. Source material has been consulted where possible. The
results of previous investigation have been freely used, but even as
often happened when we have arrived at conclusions which have been
anticipated by other writers, we have maintained quite as critical
and independent an attitude as when we ventured to challenge certain
popular opinions and to make such generalizations as the result of our
own study seemed to warrant. In some instances, however, this study has
carried us into fields of inquiry where we have no credentials, but in
these cases as in every other where we have used secondary authorities
acknowledgment is always made in the foot-notes.
In various ways we have endeavoured to condense a good deal of
information into a limited space. For example, to avoid repetition
we give frequent cross references to important topics dealt with
in different parts of this study. Again, instead of attempting the
bewildering and impossible task of giving an account of individual
schools we have given a list of the more important ones and merely
referred to particular schools as occasion demanded in order to
illustrate certain points of primary importance. For similar reasons
all attempts at biographical accounts of Irish scholars have been
studiously avoided. Such references as have occasionally been made
were necessary in carrying out our general plan which was to deal with
the Irish monastic school as an educational institution. Of course it
would have served no useful purpose to ignore completely those men
whose acknowledged scholarship was the best testimony of the character
of the instruction available in the schools in which they themselves
studied and taught.
A word might be said with reference to the proportion of space occupied
by the different topics. The plan invariably followed has been to give
a minimum of space to any topic which is treated fairly fully elsewhere
in some accessible work. On the other hand no topic which appeared
to be an integral part of the general plan has been omitted and such
topics as have been inadequately treated elsewhere have here received
fuller consideration.
While quite conscious of the limitations of our treatment, it is hoped
that by pointing out many supplementary sources of information we have
done something to smooth the path of other investigators who may wish
to explore those portions of the same field which lay outside the scope
of our present inquiry.
The author wishes to express his sincere thanks to the following:
to Dr. Fletcher H. Swift, Professor of the History of Education in
the University of Minnesota, for his sympathetic interest in the
subject and for his advice and guidance; to Rev. Laurence P. Murray,
M.R.I.A., Principal of St. Brigid’s Irish College, Omeath, Co. Louth,
for the use of his excellent Irish library and for helpful suggestions
and criticisms of the earlier chapters; to Rev. Dr. Peter Guilday,
Professor of History in the Catholic University of Washington, D.C.,
for reading the MS. and for his advice and encouragement; to Mr.
Patrick O’Daly of the Talbot Press for seeing the work through the
press and for painstaking proof-reading; and finally to the publishers
for turning out the work in an attractive and scholarly form.
COLLEGE OF ST. TERESA,
WINONA, MINNESOTA, U.S.A.,
_Lá Fhéile Pádraig,
1923._
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.—CIVILIZATION AND LEARNING IN
IRELAND IN PAGAN TIMES 1
„ II.—THE BEGINNINGS OF CLASSICAL
LEARNING 15
„ III.—IRISH MONASTICISM 30
„ IV.—THE RELATION OF THE IRISH
MONASTIC SCHOOLS TO THE
GENERAL EDUCATIONAL SITUATION
(550–900 A.D.) 71
„ V.—CENTRES OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE
IN IRISH MONASTERIES 93
„ VI.—COURSE OF STUDIES 119
„ VII.—SCOPE AND INFLUENCE OF IRISH
SCHOLARSHIP 171
BIBLIOGRAPHY:—(a) SOURCES 195
(b) SECONDARY AUTHORITIES 198
“The ages which deserve an exact enquiry are those times (for such
there were) when Ireland was the School of the West, the quiet
habitation of sanctity and literature.”
—Extract from a letter written by Dr. Samuel Johnson
(1709–1780) to Charles O’Connor (1710–1791), published in
Edward O’Reilly’s _Irish Writers_, pp. i., ii. Dublin, 1770.
“Le peuple monastique des temps barbares, le peuple missionare, et
destiné à apporter la lumière de la foi et de la science dans les
ténèbres croissantes de l’Occident, c’est le peuple Irlandais dont on
connait mieux les malheurs que les services et dont on n’a pas assez
étudié l’étonnante vocation.”
—Ozanam, Frederic. _La Civilisation Chrétienne chez les
Francs_, Ch. 4.
Roddet in cach cill caid
Etir tir is tuinnd is traig
Foglaim ecnai crabud De
Lubair cretra commairge.
—From a poem attributed to Flann Fine, the Irish name of
Aldfrith, King of Northumbria (d. 704 A.D.), who studied in
Ireland.
Text in _Eriu_, viii., p. 67. Translation, p. 71.
[Transcriber’s note.
This stanza is written in Old Irish, a language that can be read today
by only a small number of scholars. The following translation, which is
not in the source book, was made by Paul Walsh who published the entire
poem in _Eriu_.
There were yielded in every holy church,
on land and water and beach,
learning of wisdom, piety to God,
ecclesiastical duty, relics, and protection.]
[Transcriber’s note.
In the source book the following stanza is printed in an older Irish
orthography and typeface, no longer in common use. Here it is printed
using modern Irish orthography.]
Tuilleadh Feasa ar Éirinn óigh
Do chruinnigheasa ó scoith-seanóir;
Beag mo stuaim, gidh mór mo ghrádh
Ar an oileán uasal, Eire áin.
An t-Ughdar.
THE EARLY IRISH MONASTIC SCHOOLS
CHAPTER I
CIVILIZATION AND LEARNING IN IRELAND IN PAGAN TIMES
The precise state of civilization and learning in Ireland in
pre-Christian times is difficult to determine owing to the fact that
there is no native contemporary evidence of a documentary nature, while
the references in the works of foreign writers are few in number and
generally vague in character. Fortunately, however, there are a few
sources of information which have been made available by the laborious
and scholarly researches of generations of investigators. The principal
of these sources are:
1. Archæology.
2. The so-called Brehon Laws.
3. Early Irish Literature.
4. Foreign Testimony.
5. Ogam Inscriptions.
A brief survey of the evidence supplied by each of these may be helpful
in determining the nature and extent of Irish pagan culture.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL EVIDENCE:
Archæological research shows that Ireland was inhabited from very early
times though it is impossible to fix the exact chronological limit of
the earliest colonization. Passing over the beginnings of civilization
which are exemplified by the crude implements and other remains of
the Stone Age, we note that in the Bronze Age when the art of working
metals had been discovered the existing specimens of the work of these
ancient craftsmen point to a relatively advanced stage of civilization.
Indeed, an examination of the discoveries of this period amply
justifies the statement that “in point of wealth, artistic feeling and
workmanship, the Irish craftsmen of the Bronze Age surpassed those of
Britain.”[1] The doyen of prehistoric chronology, Dr. Oscar Montelius
of Stockholm, having studied the antiquities of the British Isles, gave
the result of his labours in a memoir published in 1918.[2] This work
is now the standard authority on this subject. Dr. Montelius divides
the Bronze Age into five periods. In the first period he includes the
Transitional Period where copper was in use (Copper period) which he
places between the middle of the third and the beginning of the second
millenium, B.C. One of the greatest living Irish archæologists, Mr.
George Coffey, while agreeing with the Scandinavian as to the division
into five periods, would not place the first period so early as has
been suggested by Dr. Montelius, but agrees that the first period
ended between 2000 B.C. and 1800 B.C. Both writers would
place the end of the fifth period, that is, the end of the Bronze Age
about 350 B.C. Thus we may consider the Irish Bronze Age as extending
approximately from 2000 B.C. to 350 B.C. Mr. Coffey in one of his
valuable works gives numerous illustrations representative of each
period.[3] The originals are nearly all in the National Museum, Dublin,
where Mr. Coffey is the official Keeper of Irish Antiquities. A notable
feature of the finds of this period is the abundance and variety of the
gold ornaments. The collection of gold ornaments of Irish workmanship
is the largest in the British Isles being twelve or thirteen times
more than that in the British Museum.[4] Possibly, this is but a small
fraction of the entire output of the Irish artists of pagan times; for
many Irish gold ornaments have been discovered in Scandinavia and in
Western Europe not to speak of many finds which never enter a museum.[5]
From such material remains it would appear to be a legitimate
deduction that even at this early age the Irish were skilled craftsmen
and acquired by some means at least an elementary and industrial
and technical education and that they were already cultivating the
æsthetic. Art was developing on distinctly national lines, yet the
country was not isolated. There must have been direct communication
with the Continent; for Mr. Coffey has traced Aegean and Scandinavian
influence in the incised ornament of the New Grange group[6] and
Iberian influence on some of the later type of bronze ornaments.[7]
THE BREHON LAWS:
The laws of a country dealing as they do with man in his relations
to his fellow-man and society in general are always an important
indication of the state of civilization attained by the race which
has evolved them. In this connection a valuable source of information
on the social condition and state of culture attained by the pagan
Irish is the native code of laws, generally styled the Brehon Laws,
but more correctly termed the _Féineachas_. According to a generally
accepted tradition these laws were revised and codified in 438 A.D. by
a committee of nine appointed by King Laoghaire at the suggestion of
St. Patrick. The committee consisted of three kings (Laoghaire, High
King of Ireland; Corc, King of Munster; and Daire, King of Cairnach);
three saints (St. Patrick, himself, St. Benin and St. Cairnech);
and three learned men (Ross, Dubhthach and Feargus).[8] These laws
grew up with the people from the very beginning of society and took
cognisance of them from every point of view. They professed to regulate
domestic and social relations of every kind, as well as professions,
trades, industries, occupations and wages.[9] As laws they are too
minute; but this defect renders them valuable to the student who is
interested in the social conditions of the period during which they
were evolved. As a recent commentator[10] has remarked: “The rigorously
authentic character of these laws relating to, and dealing with the
actual realities of life and with institutions and a state of society
nowhere else revealed to the same extent; the extreme antiquity both
of the provisions and the language in which they were written, and the
meagreness of Continental material illustrative of the same things
endow them with exceptional archaic, archæological and philological
interest.” The development of such a comprehensive and detailed code
of laws must have been the work of many generations of lawmakers and
suggest a relatively high degree of native culture. In this connection
one is inclined to quote the emphatic declaration of Dr. George
Sigerson who has won honours both as a litterateur and as a scientist.
He says: “I assert that, biologically speaking, such laws could
not emanate from any race whose brains had not been subject to the
quickening influence of education for many generations.”[11] In other
words, such a code of laws can be accounted for only on the assumption
of a high degree of culture as a racial heritage of the nation which
evolved them.
EVIDENCE FROM EARLY IRISH LITERATURE:
There are many passages in the oldest Irish literature, both secular
and religious, which state that the Irish had books before the
introduction of Christianity. In a memoir[12] of St. Patrick written
in the seventh century Muirchu Maccu Machteni relates how during the
contest of the saint with the druids—the learned men of the time—the
High King Laoghaire proposed that one of St. Patrick’s books and one
belonging to the druids should be cast into the water to see which
would come out uninjured—a kind of ordeal. Here it will be noticed
that Muirchu’s statement embodies a tradition which was old in the
seventh century. The same story is told in the _Tripartite Life of
St. Patrick_.[13] Both the Irish bardic tales and the oldest existing
lives of St. Patrick agree in stating that he found in the country both
literary and professional men—all pagans—druids, poets and antiquarians
or historians,[14] as well as an elaborate code of laws.[15]
Although no Irish document has been preserved which dates earlier
than the seventh century, there is ample intrinsic evidence that the
earliest existing documents were copied from manuscripts which go
back a century or two earlier and these again may have recorded the
traditions of a still earlier period. Authorities are agreed that
after the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century the Irish
scholars committed to writing not only the laws, bardic historical
poems, &c. of their own time, but those which had been preserved from
earlier times whether traditionally or otherwise.[16] In a subsequent
chapter reference will be made to a common practice of the Irish monks,
namely that of making marginal and interlinear glosses on the classical
writings they were studying, copying, or teaching. For the present it
is sufficient to note that even in the case of the earliest of the
seventh century glosses the written language was fully developed and
cultivated, with a polished phraseology and an elaborate and systematic
grammar having well established forms for its words and for all its
rich inflections. To the linguistic student it is inconceivable how
much a complete and regular system of writing could have developed in
the period which had elapsed from the introduction of Christianity in
the fifth century until the general spread of Christian learning in
the seventh. Such a period would be much too short, especially when
it is recollected that early Irish literature had its roots not in
Christianity but in the native learning which was the main, and almost
the sole, influence in developing it. This consideration points clearly
to the conclusion that native learning was carefully and systematically
cultivated before the introduction of Christianity.
Again, Irish poetry owes its development solely to the Lay Schools.[17]
It had complicated prosody—with numerous technical terms[18] all
derived from the Irish language. These vernacular terms used in Irish
grammar contrast strikingly with the terms used to designate the
offices and ceremonies of Christianity which were almost all derived
from Latin.[19] All this would go to prove that Irish prosodial rules
and technical terms, and of course Irish poetry itself, were fully
developed before the introduction of Christianity.
FOREIGN TESTIMONY:
At least one foreign writer bears witness of the fact that the pagan
Irish possessed books. A Christian philosopher of the fourth century
(some would place him as early as the second or third) whose name is
Aethicus of Istria wrote a Cosmography of the World in which he states
that on leaving Spain he hastened to Ireland where he spent some time
“examining their books” (_eorum volumina volvens_).[20] Aethicus is
not by any means complimentary. He calls the Irish sages unskilled and
uncultivated teachers, but he speaks of the Spaniards in a similar
strain. Possibly not understanding the Irish language he regarded all
learning outside of Greece and Rome as barbarous and beneath notice.
However, his statement proves that when he visited Ireland there
were books at least a century before St. Patrick’s advent; it also
shows that he found them in such abundance that he spent some time in
examining them.
OGAM INSCRIPTIONS:
The point has now been reached when it is necessary to discuss the kind
of writing used in pagan times. As has been stated, none of the books
of pre-Christian Ireland are now extant, so evidence as to the kind
of writing in use must be sought elsewhere. In the absence of books
the coinage of a country has often given valuable information in this
connection. In the case of Ireland, however, this source of information
is lacking; for though metals were worked from very early times and
gold was plentiful no trace of a native coinage has been found. Luckily
there remain in the stone inscriptions the clearest proofs that the
ancient Irish practised a peculiar kind of writing called Ogam.
DESCRIPTION OF OGAM:
Ogam or Ogham was a species of writing the letters of which were a
combination of short lines and points on, and at both sides of, a
middle or stem line called a _flesc_. In the specimens still remaining
this Ogam writing is almost entirely confined to stone inscriptions,
the groups of lines and points running along two adjacent sides of a
stone with the angular edge for the _flesc_. The arrangement may be
understood from a simple diagram.[21]
[Illustration:
(i) B L V S N (ii) H D T C QU
(iii) M G NG F R (iv) A O U E I ]
The above diagram shows the Ogam alphabet arranged in four groups. A
few other characters are occasionally used. It will be noted that crude
as this device for writing is, it is applied with considerable skill
and is framed with much ingenuity. The simpler sounds are represented
by simpler letters than the more complex. Letters in frequent use like
the vowels are the easiest to form. The arrangement of the vowels
is different from that used in the Latin and English alphabets but
corresponds to the more scientific arrangement adopted by modern
phoneticians. It is worth noting that the characters in group (ii)
stand for the initial sounds of the Old Irish words for _one_, _two_,
_three_, _four_, _five_, in the order given.
The question of Ogam writing has occupied the attention of many
antiquarians and though some of the theories projected by the earlier
investigators have been rejected as untenable our knowledge of Ogam at
the present time is fairly definite but somewhat limited. It was once
thought that Ogam was a cryptic alphabet, but many of the inscriptions
have been read by means of the above key which is to be found in the
Book of Ballymote. Owing to the fact that a few of the later Ogams have
been found with duplicates in Roman letters they have been deciphered
independently. As to the distribution of these Ogam inscribed stones
it is worthy of note that in Ireland they are found chiefly in the
south-west, and in Britain they are confined to those parts where it
is known the Irish Gael had settled.[22] Owing to the lack of criteria
for dating certain sound-changes in the Irish language it is impossible
in the present stage of our knowledge to assign definite chronological
limits to these Ogam inscriptions.[23] Mr. Quiggin in his account of
Ogam[24] asserts that the earlier inscriptions cannot be later than the
fifth century and if pagan they may be a century or two earlier. All
Ogam inscriptions with accompanying Roman letters he would assign to
a later period than 500 A.D. with the sole exception of the bilingual
inscription of Killen Cormac (Cillin Cormac) which is believed to be
earlier than 500 A.D.[25] Over three hundred Ogam inscriptions have
been found and where they have not been injured or defaced they can
generally be interpreted.
Heroes and druids in the older epics are represented as making constant
use of Ogam letters, sometimes inscribing them on wooden staves.
The state of civilization depicted in these ancient poems and prose
narratives seems to belong mainly to pre-Christian Ireland.
There is some difference in opinion as to the means whereby the Irish
discovered the use of letters. One thing is certain, the Ogam alphabet
is based on the Latin alphabet. Some think that the Irish first became
acquainted with the Roman alphabet through direct trade with the
Continent, but it is more probable as MacNeill has shown[26] that this
knowledge was acquired from the Romanized Britons from the first or
second century onward. But how or why they invented the Ogam alphabet
instead of using the Roman letters, or else Greek ones like the Gauls,
is a profound mystery. There can, however, be no doubt that the Ogam
alphabet at whatever time invented, is the peculiar possession of the
Irish Gael and is to be found only where he had his settlements.
SUMMARY:
From the preceding discussion we may safely conclude:
1. That long before the
Christian era the Ancient Irish had developed many useful arts
and were skilled and artistic craftsmen.
2. That they had a code of laws that was well suited to the
state of society that then existed, and that with slight
alterations it was well adapted to meet the requirements of the
higher civilization of Christianity. (A corroboration of this
view is the well-known fact that at a much later date many of
the Anglo-Norman settlers abandoned their own code of laws and
adopted the Brehon Code to which they became as much attached
as the Irish themselves).
3. That native learning was actively cultivated and
systematically developed before the introduction of
Christianity.
4. That there was a learned class called druids who were the
priests, teachers, poets, historians and judges. (The same man
in early times combined in himself all these functions, but in
later times there was a tendency to specialize).
5. That the Pagan Irish had a knowledge of letters and that
they wrote their learning or part of it in books and cut Ogam
inscriptions on stone and wood, but how they obtained this
knowledge we have no certain means of determining.