Whole crowds of ardent and learned Irishmen travelled on the Continent in the sixth, seventh, and succeeding centuries, spreading Christianity and secular knowledge everywhere among the people. On this point we have the decisive testimony of an eminent French writer of the ninth century, Eric of Auxerre, who himself witnessed what he records. In a letter written by him to Charles the Bald, king of France, he says:—“What shall I say of Ireland, who, despising the dangers of the deep, is migrating with almost her whole train of philosophers to our coasts?” And other foreign evidences of a like kind might be brought forward.
These men, on their first appearance on the Continent, caused much surprise, they were so startlingly different from those preachers the people had been accustomed to. They travelled on foot towards their destination in small companies, generally of thirteen. They wore a coarse outer woollen garment, in colour as it came from the fleece, and under this a white tunic of finer stuff. The long hair behind flowed down on the back: and the eyelids were painted or stained black. Each had a long stout walking-stick: and slung from the shoulder a leathern bottle for water, and a wallet containing his greatest treasure—a book or two and some relics. They spoke a strange language among themselves, used Latin to those who understood it, and made use of an interpreter when preaching, until they had learned the language of the place.
Few people have any idea of the trials and dangers they encountered. Most of them were persons in good position, who might have lived in plenty and comfort at home. They knew well, when setting out, that they were leaving country and friends probably for ever; for of those that went, very few returned. Once on the Continent, they had to make their way, poor and friendless, through people whose language they did not understand, and who were in many places ten times more rude and dangerous in those ages than the inhabitants of these islands: and we know as a matter of history, that many were killed on the way. But these stout-hearted pilgrims were prepared for all this, and looking only to the service of their Master, never flinched. They were confident, cheerful, and self-helpful, faced privation with indifference, caring nothing for luxuries; and when other provisions failed them, they gathered wild fruit, trapped animals, and fished, with great dexterity and with any sort of next-to-hand rude appliances. They were somewhat rough in outward appearance: but beneath all that they had solid sense and much learning. Their simple ways, their unmistakable piety, and their intense earnestness in the cause of religion caught the people everywhere, so that they made converts in crowds.
A great French writer, Montalembert, speaks of the Irish of those days as having a “Passion for pilgrimage and preaching,” and as feeling “under a stern necessity of spreading themselves abroad to combat paganism, and carry knowledge and faith afar.” They were to be found everywhere through Europe, even as far as Iceland and the Faroe and Shetland Islands. Europe was too small for their missionary enterprise. Many were to be found in Egypt; and as early as the seventh century, three learned Irish monks found their way to Carthage, where they laboured for a long time and with great success.
Wherever they went they made pilgrimages to holy places—places sanctified by memories of early saints—and whenever they found it practicable they were sure to make their way to Rome, to visit the shrines of the apostles, and obtain the blessing of the Pope.
The Irish “passion for pilgrimage and preaching” never died out: it is a characteristic of the race. This great missionary emigration to foreign lands has continued in a measure down to our own day: for it may be safely asserted that no other missionaries are playing so general and successful a part in the conversion of the pagan people all over the world, and in keeping alight the lamp of religion among Christians, as those of Ireland.
Irishmen were equally active in spreading secular knowledge. Indeed the two functions were generally combined; for it was quite common to find a man a successful missionary, while at the same time acting as professor in a college, or as head of some great seminary for general education. Irish professors and teachers were in those times held in such estimation that they were employed in most of the schools and colleges of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. The revival of learning on the Continent was indeed due in no small degree to those Irish missionaries. It was enough that the candidate for an appointment came from Ireland: he needed no other recommendation.
When learning had declined in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, owing to the devastations of the Danes, it was chiefly by Irish teachers it was kept alive and restored. In Glastonbury especially, they taught with great success. We are told by English writers that “they were skilled in every department of learning sacred and profane”; and that under them were educated many young English nobles, sent to Glastonbury with that object. Among these students the most distinguished was St. Dunstan, who, according to all his biographers, received his education, both Scriptural and secular, from Irish masters there.
As for the numerous Continental schools and colleges in which Irishmen figured either as principals or professors, it would be impossible, with our limited space, to notice them here. A few have been glanced at in the last chapter; and I will finish this short narrative by relating the odd manner in which two distinguished Irishmen, brothers, named Clement and Albinus,[4] began their career on the Continent.
One of the historians of the reign of Charlemagne, who wrote in the ninth century, has left us the following account of these two scholars:—When the illustrious Charles began to reign alone in the western parts of the world, and literature was almost forgotten, it happened that two Scots from Ireland came over with some British merchants to the shores of France, men incomparably skilled in human learning and in the Holy Scriptures. Observing how the merchants exhibited and drew attention to their wares, they acted in a similar fashion to force themselves into notice like the others. They went through the market-place among the crowds, and cried out to them:—“If there be any who want wisdom (i.e., learning), let them come to us, for we have it to sell.” This they repeated as they went from place to place, so that the people wondered very much; and some thought them to be nothing more than persons half crazed.