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 shores. There was ample field for their noble 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 superstition 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 gods. 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 illustrious. 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 coarse 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 “Passion 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 “passion 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 asserted 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 Glastonbury 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 nobles, sent to Glastonbury 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 principals or professors, it would be impossible, with our limited space, 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 illustrious 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 shores 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 God, 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 nobles, but also for those of the middle and low classes, 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.