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

by Hugh Graham

GEOMETRY:

Up to the tenth century, the age of Gerbert, a knowledge of Geometry in our sense of the term hardly existed in Western Europe. In fact the term seems to have been used in its etymological meaning and not in the sense the Greeks understood it. We have found no evidence to warrant the assumption that Euclidean Geometry was taught in those early Irish monastic schools. But on the other hand an examination of the characteristic Irish style of ornament suggests that the Irish artist had at least a good working knowledge of practical Geometry. Possibly the amount of knowledge of theoretical Geometry did not extend beyond the narrow[467] limits of the works of Capella,[468] Cassiodorus,[469] and Isadore of Seville[470]—writers well known to Irish scholars as we have seen.