CHAPTER V
CENTRES OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN IRISH MONASTERIES
In an Irish monastic school, as in the case of every other school, the most important centre of intellectual life was the class-room. Unlike our modern schools, however, these schools had to produce their own text-books. This work was carried on in a special room called the scriptorium. The work of the scriptorium was not limited to the production of text-books. Often valuable books of more permanent interest were written in the scriptorium and stored for reference in a special room, the library. In this way copies of many of the most treasured books of antiquity have been preserved for posterity. Indeed the educational work of the scriptorium and the library was scarcely less important than that of the class-room, or school proper. These three centres of intellectual life were closely related to each other, but each is sufficiently important to warrant a separate treatment.