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Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum
apparently a Greco-Italian, who went from the Continent
to Britain and Ireland and there distinguished himself. 1
2. ANGLO-SAXON STUDENTS IN IRELAND
After the year 635 the Anglo-Saxons in .particular
crossed over to Ireland to enjoy the liberal advantages
offered by its schools which had admitted a filtering of
Northumbrian natives for several decades previously.
Armagh was one of the favorite resorts of British and
English students and continued to be frequented by them
down to the time of the Conqueror. Gildas, the first
historian of the Britons, seems to have been first a student
and then regent at Armagh. Anglo-Saxon missionaries
who went abroad almost all received their training in
Ireland, and were usually led by Irishmen. Alcuin is
stated to have spent some years at Clonmacnois. Sulger,
afterwards bishop of St. Davids, spent from ten to fifteen
years in study in Ireland.
Bede provides striking testimony as to the numbers of
English students in Ireland and the hospitality extended
to them. He tells us that many of the English nation
were living in Ireland, whither they had repaired either
to cultivate the sacred studies or to lead a life of greater
strictness. Some of them became monks; others were
better pleased to apply to reading and study, going about
from school to school through the cells of the masters;
and all of them were most cheerfully received by the
Irish, who supplied them gratis with books and instruction.
2
Camden in his description of Ireland says: "At that
iZacharias frater, domini venerande sacerdos, ,
Accola Brittanlae, Latii telluris alumne,
Hiberniaeque decus (Quellen u. Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie
des Mittelalters, vol. 3 (1908) p. 203). Th
poem is in MS. Oxford Bodl. Add. C 144, Sale XI.
Hist. Eccles. Ill, XXVII.
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