We have referred to a common practice of the Irish monks, viz., the making of marginal and interlinear glosses in which were explained Latin, Greek and even sometimes Hebrew words and expressions by Irish equivalents. They also compiled lists of Irish words which were considered difficult or obsolete at the time the glosses were written. These words were explained by giving their more modern equivalents. Frequently the meaning was given in Latin and Greek also. The most famous glosses of this class are Cormac’s[390] and O’Mulconry’s glosses.[391] Dr. Hyde describes[392] Cormac’s glossary “as by far the oldest attempt[393] at a comparative vernacular dictionary made in any language of modern Europe. The king-bishop (Cormac, d. 903 A.D.) was a most remarkable man and an excellent scholar. He appears to have known Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Danish and to have been one of the finest old Gaelic scholars of his day and withal an accomplished poet.” In the library of St. Paul in Lavanthale (Steyermark) there is a MS. full of extracts written by an Irish monk. It contains Irish poems of the eighth century, Latin hymns, the commencement of a commentary on Virgil, a treatise on astronomy, Greek declensions and paradigms as well as a Greek vocabulary.[394] The Greek Creed was sung in the churches of St. Gallen.[395] Under the title Proverbia Graecorum there is a collection of sayings translated by some Irish scholar from Greek into Latin before the seventh century.[396] In the eighth century Boniface brings Clement the Irishman to task for not accepting the teaching of the Latin Fathers Jerome, Augustine and Gregory, just as a century later Scottus Eriugena was charged with being inclined too much to the Greek Fathers and with under-rating the Latin Fathers.[397] In the library of Laon there is a MS. written by an Irish scribe between the years 850–900 A.D. This MS. contains two glossaries in the Greek and Latin languages with occasional passages in the Irish language. It also contains a Greek grammar.[398] It is believed that the Hermeneumata of the Pseudo-Dositheus, a text used by Roman boys in studying Greek, as well as the work of Macrobius were only saved for the afterworld because they were used by the Irish.[399] The interlinear Latin versions of Greek texts are of exclusively Irish origin.[400] In the department of Biblical study Zimmer recalls two important examples: the Gospel Codex of St. Gallen written in Greek with a Latin translation and the Codex Boernerianus, now in Dresden, which contains the Epistles of St. Paul in Greek together with an interlinear Latin version. Both belong to the ninth century.[401]
These various examples of a knowledge of Greek and of the necessary materials for teaching it, such as grammars, paradigms, vocabularies and glosses, as well as interlinear translations clearly point to the conclusion that Greek was taught in the Irish monastic schools of the seventh and eighth centuries. In our next chapter when we come to examine the scope of Irish scholarship, the knowledge of Greek will be so evident in the case of the great ninth century scholars like Sedulius of Liège, Dungal of Pavia, Clement the successor of Alcuin at the Palace School and Scottus Eriugena that it is unnecessary to discuss the matter further at present. The question as to where these scholars got their classical training can be answered best by saying that they got it in the monastic schools of Ireland where we have shown that the classical tradition was unbroken from at least as early as the sixth century, possibly a century or two earlier.[402]
De Jubainville declares that in the ninth century the Irish scholars were the only persons in Western Europe who knew Greek.[403] Traube claims that in the time of Charles the Bald at least the Irish were the sole representatives of Greek scholarship: “they could read and write Greek, they could transcribe it, nay, they even ventured occasionally to make Greek verses.”[404] Anyone who in the time of Charles the Bald was credited with a knowledge of Greek was, according to Traube, an Irishman, or had learned it from an Irishman, or his reputation for Greek scholarship was a fraud.[405] It is significant that the copy of the work of Dionysius the Areopagite, which Pope Paul had presented to King Pippin had to wait for an Irishman, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, to translate it for Charles the Bald.[406]
That a knowledge of Greek was indispensable for a study of the Scriptures would in itself be sufficient to account for the study of Greek in the Irish monastic schools. A further reason for the Irish love of Greek has been suggested by several writers. Michelet says: “Le génie celtique, qui est celui de l’individualité, sympathise profondément avec le génie grec.”[407] As we have pointed out, the Greek views in philosophy and theology appealed in an especial manner to Irish scholars of this period. According to Healy, “the Irish mind, like the Greek, has a natural love for speculation, is quick, subtle, and far-seeing, has greater power of abstraction and generalization—that is, greater metaphysical power than the phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon.”[408] We venture no opinion as to whether this proposition will stand a critical examination but would merely record the fact that other able writers when dealing with this period have also discerned much in common between the Hellenic and the Celtic mind. Mullinger notes “a certain speculative, outlooking quality certainly not very apparent in the school of York.”[409] Cardinal Newman declares that as Rome was the centre of authority in these ages so Ireland was the native home of speculation; while contrasting the English scholars with the Irish he says: “The Englishman was hardworking, plodding, bold, determined, persevering, obedient to law and precedent, and if he cultivated his mind he was literary rather than scientific. In Ireland, on the other hand, the intellect seems to have taken the line of science and we have various instances to show how fully this was recognised. ‘Philosopher’ in these times is almost synonymous with ‘Irish Monk’.”[410] It was this characteristic of the Irish monks Renan[411] had in mind when he spoke of them as “les colonisateurs scientifiques d’Europe occidentale.”
A further resemblance, and one of a less promising character, may be traced in the predilection shown by both the Greek and the Gael for questions which admitted a display of dialectical subtlety. It was this feature which arrested the attention of Benedict of Aniane and aroused his dislike for the Irish theologians. They were distinguished, he tells us, for syllogistic mystification. “Apud modernos scholasticos maxime apud Scottos iste syllogismus delusionis.”[412] Mullinger tells us that they would sometimes amuse themselves by interrogating some stolid representative of orthodoxy, and compel him as a logical sequence of his replies, to admit the existence of three Gods or to disavow his belief in the Trinity.[413] This typically national characteristic of adding a humorous touch to a profound but dry metaphysical discussion has for us a deep human interest, though it was undoubtedly embarrassing to learned and solemn opponents who could neither understand, nor sympathise with, the rather subtle and complex Irish temperament.
It has also been remarked that this tendency to speculation led the Irish to admire the work of Martianus Capella whose volume was a sealed book to the school of York; while in the three great monasteries of Luxeuil, St. Gall, and Bobbio numerous MSS. in the original Irish character (Scottice scripta) of Origen and other Greek Fathers remained to attest the more inquiring spirit in which the studies of their communities were pursued. Thanks to his Greek studies and his natural mental attitude the Irish Theologian became a better astronomer as well as a better dialectician.[414]
MUSIC:
Music constituted an important element in Irish culture both in pagan and in Christian times. Hectateus, the great geographer quoted by Diodorus, is the first who mentions the name Celt and he describes the Celts of Ireland as singing songs in praise of Apollo and playing melodiously on the harp (c. 500 B.C.).[415] Native Irish literature abounds in reference to music and musicians who were always spoken of in terms of the highest respect. Everywhere through these ancient records we find evidence that the Irish people both high and low were passionately fond of music. It entered into their daily lives and formed a part of their amusements and celebrations of every kind.[416] Zeuss in his Grammatica Celtica (1853) was the first to give the key to the nature of the musical instruments used in ancient Ireland. The references to music given by Zeuss were taken from glosses dating from 650 A.D. to 900 A.D. and written by the Irish monks of St. Gall. O’Curry,[417] Joyce,[418] and Flood[419] have followed up the work of Zeuss, so we have now a fairly clear idea of the state of musical culture during the period under investigation. Flood gives the names of twelve different instruments in use and of nine professional names of the performers.[420] It is not without significance that the harp is the national symbol. There are references to the harp in Irish literature probably as early as the fifth century.[421] O’Curry was so impressed with the many evidences he found of a high degree of musical culture that he could not restrain his enthusiasm. He says: “If ever there was a people gifted with a musical soul and sensibility in a higher degree than another I would venture to assert that the Ancient Gaedhil of Ireland were that people.”[422]
The monks were no exception to their fellow-countrymen in their love of music, consequently in Christian times music was intimately connected with public worship.[423] In the early ages of the Church many of the Irish ecclesiastics took delight in playing the harp and in order to indulge this innocent and refining taste they were wont to take with them a small portable harp when going from place to place.[424] Figures of men playing the harp are common on the stone crosses seen at Graig, Ullard, Clonmacnoise, Durrow and Monasterboice, as also on the shrines of ancient reliquaries.[425] It appears from several authorities that the practice of playing on the harp as an accompaniment to the voice was common in Ireland as early as the fifth or sixth century.[426]
During the long period when learning flourished Irish professors and teachers of music would seem to have been quite as much in request as teachers of literature and philosophy. In the middle of the seventh century Gertrude (daughter of Pepin, Mayor of the Palace) when abbess of Niville in Belgium engaged Foillan and Ultan brothers of St. Fursey to instruct her nuns in Psalmody.[427] It has been asserted that Gregorian chant coloured much of the music of Ireland from the fifth to the eighth century, but Gregorian chant dates only from 593 A.D. and, as Flood pointed out, both the psalmody and the hymnody of the Irish were distinctly Celtic in the first half of the seventh century and were mainly adaptations of the old pre-Christian melodies.[428]