Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum; Or, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars

by John Healy

We find, however, from references in the Brehon Laws, that lay Schools and lay Professors occupied a recognised and honourable position in the social polity of the time.

I.—Organization of the Gaedhlic Professional Schools.

In the Sequel, or Second Part, of the Crith Gabhlach the legal rights and social position of the Professors of the Liberal Arts are set down with a considerable degree of fulness and accuracy. We are aware that it has been said[441] that these, and some other portions of the Crith Gabhlach “are the fantastic production of an antiquarian lawyer of a strong ecclesiastical bias.” It is hardly necessary to question the competency of this writer to pronounce such an opinion. He appears to have been wholly unacquainted with the Irish language, and obviously has only a lawyer’s knowledge of our ancient Annals. For those very things, regarding the orders, rights, and privileges of the Church, which he so coolly describes as the fantastic production of a lawyer with an ecclesiastical bias, are shown in every page of our Annals to be amongst the recognised institutions of the Celtic tribes in Erin. It is, in fact, quite clear that he admits only as authentic laws those which seem to harmonise with his own pre-conceived notions of ecclesiastical polity; but those which do not fit in with these pre-conceived views, he rejects as fantastic! Such is the critical faculty of some of those to whom the publication of the Brehon Laws has been entrusted.

In this Sequel to the Crith Gabhlach,[442] ‘profession’ is set down as one of the things which give social status in Erin. And, as in the Church, and amongst the land-owning classes, there were several grades, so there were also amongst the professional classes. These grades are set down as seven; but it is not easy for us to realise the degrees of gradation between them, since that state of society has totally passed away; as surely it would be difficult in similar circumstances to discriminate between the various grades in the learned professions that exist amongst ourselves to-day. It would not be easy for us to explain for the Maoris how those entitled to write after their names A.B., or M.A., or LL.D. differ amongst themselves; or in what the Q.C. is superior to the Stuff Gown; and the same difficulty will be found to exist in all the degrees, whether academical or professional, on which men set so much value at present.

In like manner, in ancient Erin, the ‘seven grades of wisdom’ are carefully distinguished by law, although it is not easy for us in every case to perceive the point of the distinction.

There was a High-professor (rosai), and a simple Professor (sai); there was an anruth and a sruth, that is, a ‘noble stream’ and a ‘stream,’ which, in our opinion, have not been at all explained; there was an ‘illustrator,’ and an ‘interrogator,’ and a ‘pupil’—or, as we should now call them, a grinder, and a tutor, and an undergraduate. The High-professor was also called an ollamh and a sai litre, that is in modern parlance a LL.D. (speaking of laymen), and a Doctor of Literature. The most important point is that the Ollave was entitled to sit at the king’s table as an honoured guest. In point of knowledge he was qualified to answer all questions in the four great departments of learning—that is, in poetry, literature, history, and, like a LL.D., in canon and civil law.

He was entitled to bring four-and-twenty persons in his retinue, or peripatetic school; and neither he nor they could be denied food without incurring a severe penalty—one-seventh of his death-eric. One of his functions and rights was to be ‘in the bosom of his disciples,’ always imparting knowledge to them on all suitable occasions.

The anruth, or ‘noble stream,’ was only entitled to half this company, but in other respects he was supposed to be a junior Ollave or Fellow—in the number of his intellectual gifts, in the eloquence of his language, the greatness of his knowledge, and the nobility of his teaching—but he had not yet reached the ‘pinnacle’ of knowledge, like the full-blown Ollave.

We cannot now discuss at greater length the various other sub-divisions, both amongst masters and pupils, which were almost as numerous as in the Intermediate Schools and Royal University—all put together, including the Senators, Fellows, Teaching-Examiners, and Graduates.

The learned professions were, in like manner, carefully discriminated and sub-divided. Leaving out the Church, it seems that there were at this period three great lay professions—Poetry, Law, and History. Poetry (filidecht), generally gets precedence; and the Ollave-poet seems to have been at the very top of the learned professions. The ‘bard’ at this period is distinguished from the ‘poet.’ The former is described as a man “without lawful learning but his own intellect;”[443] that is a man who had from nature the gift of music and of song, but who was never regularly trained, and never graduated in the School of Poetry. Not so the file or poet. He was trained in all the mysteries of the various kinds of Gaedhlic verse; he could compose extempore or in writing; he knew the legal number of recognised poems and tales, and was pronounced qualified to recite them before kings and chieftains, whether in the banquet hall, or on the battle-march. He could eulogise, too, and satirise; and he and all his company were entitled both to fees and refection.