There is a curious geographical poem[274] forming a sort of text-book on general geography which was used in the school of Ros-Ailithir in Cork of which the author MacCosse was Principal (Fer-leighinn). This poem contained practically all that was then known of the principal countries of the world. It was written about the beginning of the tenth century. The tenth century map of the world drawn in England for an Anglo-Saxon is supposed to have been the work of an Irish artist.[275] Although inaccurate in many particulars this map is historically interesting as showing the state of geographical knowledge at this time.
In teaching Greek the Irish monks used the Nermeneumata of the Pseudo-Dositheus, the work of Macrobius De Differentiis et Societatibus Graeci Latinique Verbi, Latin glosses and interlinear versions.[276] With regard to the Pseudo-Dositheus and the book of Macrobius, Traube believes that were it not for the fact that these books were used by the Irish in teaching Greek both would have been lost to the afterworld. Mrs. Concannon conjectures that the earliest teachers of Latin brought with them to Ireland the third century Disticha Catonis and used them as materials for teaching as well as for moral instruction.[277] The many copies of Priscian with numerous glosses thereon would suggest that this work was extensively used in Irish monastic schools. Traube has shown conclusively that the St. Gall copy of Priscian was written by some friends of Sedulius (of Liège) and supposes it was copied in some Irish monastery about the beginning of the ninth century and brought by Irishmen to the Continent.[278] Indeed, the glosses everywhere furnish objective proofs that the Irish monks were skilled practical teachers as well as accomplished classical scholars. In all these interlinear and marginal notes so abundant in the MSS. of the Old Irish period (prior to 900 A.D.) we see clear evidence of preparation for the work of teaching.
It is worthy of note that in the earlier stages of instruction the pupil was encouraged to ask questions about the difficulties which he encountered and the tutor was expected to explain everything that was obscure to the learner. At a later stage the learner was questioned to test whether he had grasped the meaning of what he read, and to raise difficulties which he was required to explain.[279] In fact the instruction would seem to have been thorough and in many respects was at least equal in efficiency, if not in technique, to that imparted in many of our modern schools. We are told that it was the special merit of the tutor who obtained the degree known as Sruth-do-aill that “he was able to modify his instruction to the complexion of the information in mercy to the people who were unable to follow the instruction of a teacher of higher degree. In other words he was able to make hard things easy to weak students who might get frightened in the presence of the formidable scholar.”[280] This would show that the question of “individual differences” was a live one in pedagogical circles in those days and that a genuine attempt was made to solve it. When we come in a later chapter to discuss the characteristics of the groups of figures represented on the sculptured crosses we shall see that the value of “visual instruction” was appreciated.
THE SCRIPTORIUM:
The function of the scriptorium was to supply text-books for the school, service books for the church and monastic community, and works of a more general and ambitious nature for the library. Our knowledge of the internal life of the scriptorium is unfortunately very limited and is deduced almost entirely from an examination of the MSS. produced therein. It would seem that the scriptorium was not unlike a modern school-room in some respects. In silence the younger members of the monastic community and other students sat there writing out and multiplying books, sometimes from dictation, sometimes by copying. An invigilator sat there also to preserve silence and to act as task master. On the margins of the MSS. we sometimes find short fragmentary notes devoid of literary value, but of deep human interest as showing that unregenerate human nature had its opportunities even in a monastic scriptorium as much as in a modern school-room. These notes[281] are supposed to be fragments of conversations carried on sotto voce to evade the rule of silence and doubtlessly notes were scribbled surreptitiously to companions. Though all too few these vivid human touches add not a little to our knowledge of student life in those far off days.
The scribes made all the writing materials: tablets, vellum, ink, pens. We have shown that wax tablets were used in teaching writing. They were also used in teaching reading, and for such temporary purposes as taking notes of a sermon or lecture.[282] Adamnan writing in the seventh century mentions that he inscribed certain writings first on wax tablets and afterwards on vellum.[283] For memoranda a slate and pencil were also used, as we learn from the story of Cinnfaela the Learned. When he was at the school of Tuaim Drecain, now Tom Regan in Co. Cavan, he wrote down roughly on slates what he heard during the day, but at night he transferred the entries into a vellum book.[284] These tablets were made of long strips of wood and covered with beeswax. In shape they were sometimes like short swords.
The schools prepared their own vellum or parchment from the skins of goats, sheep, and calves. This parchment was usually finely polished, but sometimes it was hard and not well cleaned. The parchment prepared by the Irish scribes was much thicker than that used by the French from the seventh to the tenth century: thus we have an additional means whereby we can identify Irish MSS. on the Continent.[285]
The ink was made of carbon. It has been found to resist all the chemical tests for iron. The blackness of the ink even at the present day is quite remarkable. The writing of the Book of Armagh, for instance, is as black as if it were written yesterday.[286]
The ink was very likely made of lampblack, or possibly of fish bone black.[287] When we come to describe the illuminated MSS. which remain to attest the artistic skill of the monastic scribes we shall see that not only were they experts at making a superior quality of ink but, what is still more remarkable, they manufactured a large variety of pigments which even at the present day have lost little of their original brilliancy after a lapse of one thousand years.