The Early Irish Monastic Schools / A study of Ireland's contribution to early medieval culture

by Hugh Graham

CHAPTER VI

COURSE OF STUDIES

Perhaps the question of greatest interest to the student of the history of Education of the Early Middle Ages is the character of curriculum taught in the Irish Monastic Schools during the period under investigation. Most writers have conveniently avoided all reference to this question or they have contented themselves with vague generalizations which may mean much or little in proportion to the reader’s own familiarity with the history of the period. We are told, for example, that the Irish monks were possessors of a higher culture than was found elsewhere in Europe and that they taught all the knowledge of their time. Such statements are not particularly helpful. Dr. Joyce, however, has tried to be more explicit. Utilising the materials brought to light through the publication of the Brehon Laws and availing himself of the researches of O’Curry and other Irish scholars, he has compiled[322] two Tables of Degrees and Subjects of Study. In the first he gives the courses of study for Monastic and Bardic Schools in parallel columns. This course appears to have been carefully graded and extends over a period of twelve years. The second table is quite different from the first. It is designated the “Seven Grades or Orders of Wisdom.” The former scheme would seem to have the students in view while the latter has reference mainly to the professors or teachers of whom three of the lower grades, or orders, were themselves learners. This shows that in the Irish schools the functions of teaching and learning were closely related, and it often happened that the same person was at one time under instruction of the professors in the grades above him while at another time he was employed in teaching junior scholars.

From an examination of these two schemes we feel justified in drawing the following conclusions:

1. That the scheme of education was carefully graduated and extended over a period of several years, probably from 7 to 26 years in the case of monastic students and from 7 to 30 years for lay students.

2. The lay or bardic studies were limited originally to native secular learning.

3. That the monastic course included both secular and religious studies, that both Latin and the vernacular were used as a medium of instruction, and that the study of native literature was not neglected.

4. That in the monastic school special attention was given to the study of the Sacred Scriptures—both the Old and the New Testament.

5. That there would appear to have been more rote memory work in the Bardic than in the Monastic school.

6. That there was frequent questioning and explanation in the Monastic school.

7. That the degree of Ollamh or Doctor was reserved for those whose learning was profound. That this great scholar was entitled to the highest honour: when he visited the palace he had the privilege of sitting in the banqueting-house with the king.

While we believe the above conclusions fully warranted, we confess that many of the terms used in both schemes are either so vague or so obscure that we do not feel satisfied that an adequate idea of the course of study in the Irish monastic schools can be derived from this source. We propose to supplement Dr. Joyce’s helpful but rather meagre account by many additional facts which have been gleaned from an examination of the acknowledged works of Irish writers of this period and such references as are met with in the works of other writers.

We hope to show that the curriculum was a comparatively broad one, including not only the study of the Sacred Scriptures with the commentaries of the Greek and Latin Fathers, but also the study of the pagan authors of Greece and Rome. Nor was the study of the Irish language and literature neglected. Science in the modern sense of the word was unknown, but as regards Geography, Computation, and Astronomy the Irish Monastic Schools were quite as far advanced as any in Europe and certainly far ahead of their neighbours. At least in the ninth century philosophy and dialectic were eagerly studied. We shall have a word to say about the Irish school of church music. Art too flourished, especially the illumination of manuscripts, various ornamental forms of metal work and stone-carving.

No doubt the primary aim of the Irish monastic school was the teaching and study of Christian theology, but just as Christianity itself did not mean the abolition but rather the fulfilment of Hebrew ideals and traditions, so when Christianity was introduced into Ireland where an ancient native culture was flourishing the new culture did not displace the old but rather combined with it to form a new type of culture which in course of time became at once both Irish and Christian. In the schools everything that was not absolutely opposed to the ideals of Christianity was utilised to enrich the course of study. Thus the native laws, literature, music and art became the handmaid of Christianity. The same liberal and enlightened conception of education would explain the success with which the Irish monks pursued the study of the pagan classics. The literary taste already acquired through a study of native literature was entirely favourable to the appreciation and enjoyment of the great authors of antiquity. Besides the Christianity of the Irish monk was sufficiently robust to prevent any of those scruples of conscience which were said to have haunted the continental monk who loved his Virgil.[323] Indeed the stories in the classics about gods and goddesses would be regarded by the Irish purely from a literary and artistic standpoint and could have little religious significance for them since there was little in common between the paganism of Greece and Rome and such remnants of paganism as still survived in Ireland. On the Continent the case was different, hence the suspicion with which continental ecclesiastics regarded the study of writings other than those of the Fathers and as they were ignorant of Greek they had to confine themselves solely to the Latin Fathers. Not so the Irish monks as we shall see later. Moreover, the anxiety to obtain more perfect copies of the Scriptures was an additional and perhaps more powerful incentive to the Irish monk to make himself familiar with the classical forms of Greek and Latin.

If this is a correct interpretation of the educational situation confronting the Irish monastic schools—and the evidence we shall produce is overwhelming—then we shall see how unwarranted is the statement of a recent writer[324] that the learning of the Irish was wholly psalm-singing and theology—not the classics; and that the maiora studia referred to by Bede meant the Scriptures,—not philosophy and literature.