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Irish Tutelage of England
found in their thousands in cathedral, monastery and
school on the Continent must nearly all of them have
journeyed or resided for a time in England. Some sailed
directly from Irish ports to French ports; that we know,
but these must have formed a minority. The vast majority
must have taken the more easy route through England,
except in the frequent periods when the natives were on
the warpath and the journey was impossible, as on the
occasions to which Alcuin in his letter to Colgu of Clon-
macnois 1
alludes. Columbanus and his company traveled
by way of England, made an effort at missionary work
there, and only passed on because of the hopelessness of
the undertaking. Probably by that way went also Dungal,
Dicuil, Clement, Ferghil of Salzburg, Johannes Scotus
Eriugena, Sedulius Scotus, Marianus Scotus, and those
other Irishmen who attained fame abroad. The presence
of men such as these in England, whether transitory or
prolonged, could not have been without results. Some of
them probably lived and taught in England for years
and only sought the Continent, when, as in the case of
Fursa and his company, the internecine conflicts among
the English tribes eddied in their direction and undid
their work. In these Irish colonies will be found the key
to much that is dark in English history as well as the roots
of that fugitive blooming of the arts showing itself here
and there on the rank soil of English barbarism.
iMigne, Pat. Lat. C, 142, Ad Colcura Lectorera in Scotia (anno 790),
Epistola III.
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