Strange rumours regarding them went round, and at length came to the ears of King Charles; on which he sent for the brothers, and had them brought to his presence. He questioned them closely, using the Latin language, and asked them whether it was really the case that they had learning; and they replied—in the same language—that they had, and were ready, in the name of God, to communicate it to those who sought it with worthy intentions. Then the king asked what payment they would expect, and they replied:—“We require proper houses and accommodation, pupils with ingenious minds and really anxious to learn; and, as we are in a foreign country where we cannot conveniently work for our bread, we shall require food and raiment: we want nothing more.”
Now at this very time King Charles was using his best efforts to restore learning, by opening schools throughout his dominions, but found it hard to procure a sufficient supply of qualified teachers. And as he perceived that these brothers were evidently men of real learning, and of a superior cast in every way, he joyfully accepted their proposals. Having kept them for some time on a visit in his palace, he finally opened a great school in some part of France—probably Paris—for the education of boys of all ranks of society, not only for the sons of the highest nobles, but also for those of the middle and low classes, at the head of which he placed Clement. He also directed that all the scholars should be provided with food and suitable habitations: it was in fact a great free boarding-school, founded and maintained at the expense of the king. As for Albinus, he sent him to Italy, with directions that he should be placed at the head of the important school of the monastery of St. Augustine at Pavia. And these schools are now remembered in history as two great and successful centres of learning belonging to those ages.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW THE ANCIENT IRISH WROTE DOWN ALL THEIR LITERATURE, AND HOW BOOKS INCREASED AND MULTIPLIED.
Printing was not invented till the fifteenth century, and before that time all books had of course to be written by hand.
According to our native records the art of writing was known to the pagan Irish, and the druids had books on law and other subjects, long before the time of St. Patrick. Besides these home evidences, which are so numerous and strong as hardly to admit of dispute, we have the testimony of a learned foreigner, which is quite decisive on the point. A Christian philosopher of the fourth century of our era, named Ethicus of Istria, travelled over the three continents, and has left a description of his wanderings, in what he calls a ‘Cosmography’ of the World. He visited Ireland more than a hundred years before the arrival of St. Patrick; and he states that he found there many books, and that he remained for some time in the country examining them. So far then as Ethicus records the existence of Irish books in the fourth century, he merely corroborates our own native accounts.
The pagan Irish books were, of course, written in the Irish language; but as to the nature or shapes of the letters, or the form of the writing, or how it reached Ireland, on these points we have no information, for none of the old books remain. The letters used in these books could hardly have been what are known as Ogham characters, for these are too cumbrous for long passages.
Ogham was a species of writing, the letters of which were formed by combinations of short lines and points, on and at both sides of a middle or stem line. Nearly all the Oghams hitherto found are sepulchral inscriptions. Great numbers of monumental stones are preserved with Ogham inscriptions cut on them, of which most have been deciphered, either partially or completely. They are in a very antique form of the Irish language; and while many were engraved in far distant pagan ages, others belong to Christian times.
But whatever characters the Irish may have used in times of paganism, they learned the Roman letters from the early Roman missionaries, and adopted them in writing their own language during and after the time of St. Patrick: which are still retained in modern Irish. These same letters, moreover, were brought to Great Britain by the early Irish missionaries already spoken of ([p. 52]), from whom the Anglo-Saxons learned them; so that England received her first knowledge of the letters of the alphabet—as she received most of her Christianity—from Ireland. Formerly it was the fashion to call those letters Anglo-Saxon: but now people know better. Our present printed characters—the very characters now under the reader’s eye—were ultimately developed from those old Irish-Roman letters.