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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
the plan of St. Patrick. Had time been allowed them
they and their successors doubtless would have done what
Theodore subsequently accomplished in their place.
Theodore's work is alleged by historians, the one slav-
ishly echoing the other, to have shown the superior organ-
izing genius of the Roman. The allegation merely betrays
the imitative prejudice of the historian. Theodore was
not a Roman; Augustine was. Augustine accomplished
far less than the Irishmen. Theodore had the work both
of Augustine and the Irishmen to build upon. He did
a great work, but his work was made possible only by
the work of his predecessors. As Stubbs remarks, Theo-
dore could have done very little if the Irish had not pre-
pared the way.
2. HIGH BIRTH AND BREEDING OF IRISH FOUNDERS
An attempt has been made by some English historians
to depict Wilfrid, archbishop of York, who appears to
have had a kink in his character which prevented sus-
tained cooperation in any work with others, as a sort of
grand seigneur and Cardinal Richelieu, a polished and
fastidious ecclesiastical statesman and patron of arts and
letters, in contrast with the rude but ascetic Irish enthu-
siasts of Lindisfarne. The attempt is absurd in the last
degree. It is true that Wilfrid must have broadened the
education he received at Lindisfarne by his travels on the
Continent where the chief centers of culture were the
numerous Irish foundations. But it is also true that
Wilfrid was but one remove from the unwashed savage,
while the Irish monks who civilized him, the leaders of
them nearly all of high birth, and the greatest travelers
of their age, were representatives of the Celtic civiliza-
tion that was old and mellow even before it was trans-
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