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

by John Healy

This ecclesiastical legislation of Patrick and his assistant prelates must have exercised a most beneficial influence in restraining crime and superstition amongst all classes. The first element of civilization is the recognition of the reign of law instead of brute force; and that was a lesson which it was especially necessary to inculcate on the Irish tribes.

Hence the Apostle inculcates at some length, and in very beautiful language, the duties of the ecclesiastical judges and of good kings, while he does not spare to draw the sword of excommunication against the crimes and excesses of all, both rulers and subjects.

The judges of the Church, he says, must have the fear of God, not of man; and the wisdom of God, not the wisdom of the world, which is folly in His sight. They must not accept any gifts, for gifts blind the judgment; they must have before their minds, not secular cunning, but the precedents of the divine law (exempla divina). They should be sparing in their words, and slow to pronounce sentence, and above all never utter a falsehood, judging in all things justly, because as they judge others, by the same standard shall they themselves be judged. Principles like these thus solemnly enunciated must have exercised a very great influence in teaching all classes that respect for law and the rights of others, which is the foundation of all civilization.

Then the kings—a numerous class in Erin—were also taught their duties, and by one who was able to give a sanction to his teaching. The duty of the king is to judge no one unjustly; to be the protector of the stranger, the widow, and the orphan; to punish thefts and adulteries; not to encourage unchaste buffoons, nor exalt the wicked, but root them out of the land; to put to death parricides and perjurers; to defend the Church and give alms to the poor; to select just and wise ministers, and prudent counsellors; to give no countenance to druids, or pythonesses, or augurers; to defend his country in strength and in justice; to put his confidence in God, not being elated by prosperity nor cast down by adversity; to profess the Catholic faith and restrain his sons from evil deeds; to give time to prayer, and not to spend it unduly in unseasonable banquets. This, he says, is the justice of a king, which secures the peace of the people, the defence of the country, the rights of the poor, and all other blessings spiritual and temporal, including fruitful trees, abundant crops, genial weather, and universal happiness. Such were the noble principles inculcated by St. Patrick in his preaching, formulated in his laws, and enforced by all the power of his authority.[77]

Although St. Patrick was accompanied to Ireland by a very considerable number of clerics of every order to aid him in his great task of the conversion of Ireland, still he must have found it difficult, as new churches were founded and the foreign clergy died out, to supply labourers for the ripening vineyard. As yet there were no Christian Schools in Erin. Armagh was probably the first, but Armagh was not founded until A.D. 445, when the site of a cathedral was granted by Daire to Patrick on Macha’s Height. The school could not be organized for some years later, perhaps about the year A.D. 450.

But meantime Patrick had organized a kind of peripatetic school, which accompanied the Saint in his frequent missionary journeys through the various parts of the country. He himself spent his time in preaching, baptizing, founding churches, and making such provision, as he could, for the administration of the sacraments and the celebration of Mass. The clerical students, his disciples, accompanied him, and in this way were able to obtain both theoretical and practical instruction in the work of missionary life. The instruction which the Bards, Brehons, and Druids communicated to their disciples was mainly, if not exclusively, of an oral character. The memory was highly trained by exercise, and the art of recitation was carried to a wonderful degree of perfection. The disciples too accompanied the master on his rounds from one chieftain’s dun to another, and were sharers in the hospitality and rewards, which were freely bestowed on all.

Oral instruction of a similar character was doubtless also communicated by St. Patrick to his disciples during their missionary journeys, as well as in those places where he and his household remained for any considerable time. Books were scarce, but were not unknown. The British and French clergy no doubt brought with them to Ireland such books as were indispensable for a missionary priest or bishop. These would be a Mass-book, a ritual, and a copy of the psalms, and of the Gospels. They were carried in leathern wallets slung from the girdle, and sometimes in covers, or cases of wood, strengthened and adorned with metallic rims and clasps. Such were the book-covers (leborchometa), which St. Asicus of Elphin used to make for Patrick.[78] Once also when Patrick was journeying from Rome he met six young clerics with ‘their books at their girdles,’ who were going to the holy city on their pilgrimage. And Patrick gave them a hide of seal-skin, or cow skin—it is doubtful which, says the narrator—to make a wallet, as it would seem, for their books, for they had it adorned with gold and white bronze.[79] Palladius left books (libru) after him in Leinster, and both Patrick and the Druids had books at Tara, and Patrick’s books (libair) once fell into one of the streams that flow into the Suir and were ‘drowned.’ Probably these were some of the books which Celestine gave to Patrick, ‘in plenty,’ when he was about to come to Ireland.[80] Patrick gave Deacon Justus of Fuerty in the co. Roscommon, his own book of ritual and of baptism (lebar nuird ocus baptismi.)[81] He also carried across the Shannon the books of the Law and of the Gospel, and left them in the new Churches which he founded.[82] Lebar n-uird is the same as Liber ordinis, and means a missal, or Ordo Missae, and the Liber baptismi would be what we now call a ‘ritual,’ containing the forms for the administration of the sacraments. In Tyrawley the Saint gave Bishop Mucknoi, whom he there ordained, “seven Books of the Law,” in order that Mucknoi himself might ordain other bishops and priests, and deacons in that country, and as it would seem, have copies of the Books of the Law to give them. (Book of Armagh, f. 14.)

These books St. Patrick and his companions in all probability carried with them from the Continent. But there was one kind of smaller book corresponding to our smallest and simplest form of catechism, which the Saint usually wrote for his favourite disciples with his own hand. It is sometimes described as the ‘Elements,’ and sometimes as an ‘Alphabet,’ or brief outline of the essential truths of Christianity. It was the first book put into the hands of the educated converts, who knew how to read and write, which was always an indispensable qualification for admission into the ranks of the clergy. Of course the common people could be duly taught the essential truths of religion by oral instruction. It was for those whom he destined to be themselves teachers that he wrote the ‘Elements’ or ‘Alphabets’ of the Christian Doctrine. The phrase in Latin is scripsit elementa, corresponding to the Irish scribais aipgiter, and sometimes scripsit abigitorium (as in the Book of Armagh, f. 13).

The word aipgiter or abgitir has been frequently used in this sense in ancient Irish manuscripts, not to express the letters of the alphabet, but a simple compendium of the art or other subject in question. Thus abgitir crabaith means the alphabet of faith, that is, the simple and fundamental truths of faith; abigiter in crabaid is the ‘alphabet of piety,’ and so in similar cases. Patrick had no suitable work for this purpose, and, hence, he himself frequently wrote a catechism or outline of these elementary truths of the Christian doctrine suited to the capacity of the learners.

So we find that the equipment of a young priest beginning his missionary work was very simple. He got in the way of books his abigitorium, or catechism, his Mass-book (or Liber ordinis), his ritual, his psaltery, and when it could be spared a copy of the Gospels; and then if he were a bishop Patrick gave him also, as he did to Fiaac of Sletty, a case (cumtach[83]) containing a bell, a chalice, a crozier, and book-satchel with the necessary books. We have distinct evidence too, from the Epistle to Coroticus, that he himself taught these students. He describes the messenger who carried that letter to the tyrant as a holy priest, whom he (Patrick) had taught from his childhood (infantia). The reference can scarcely be to St. Benignus, his coadjutor in Armagh, for Benignus died A.D. 457 or 458, many years in all probability before the Epistle to Coroticus was written. It is more likely the apostle refers to Mochae of Noendrum, who was a tender youth when the Saint first met him in A.D. 432, when he baptized the boy and gave him a gospel and a menistir, which means a chalice and paten. Dr. Whitley Stokes translates it ‘credence-table,’ which is unlikely, as it was sometimes made of creduma or bronze,[84] and in low Latin ministerium[85] was frequently used to designate the utensils for the Holy Sacrifice.