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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
He may be identical with the Irish Marcus who, being
on his way to Rome, in the year 822 wrote in Italy a
history of Britain, but he seems to have been a younger
man.
In the life of Fridolin, the son of an Irish reigning
prince, who established the foundation of Seckingen on
the Rhine, and other foundations at Helera on the
Moselle, Hiliaricum near the Saar, in the Vosges Moun-
tains and in other parts of France and Switzerland,
Ireland is represented as enjoying an extraordinary abun-
dance of material resources and of secular riches, while
the wealthy gave with liberal hand to the poor and be-
stowed from their means what was necessary to maintain
schools and all manner of useful learning. The education
received by Fridolin, who later on established schools
for young women and men in his Rhine and other founda-
tions, is reported to have been of a nature suitable to the
circumstances of his parents and to his own rank. He
pursued with success the study of profane and sacred
literature and while he learned, it is recorded, the speculations
of Pythagoras and of Plato, he was most assiduous
in poring over the pages of the sacred scriptures. Allu-
sions such as these, found in profusion in the lives of
medieval Irishmen, serve to present an exalted impression
of the classic taste and acumen possest by the educated
classes in Ireland. 1
This going to school in Ireland was not a matter of one
short generation. It became traditional and continuous.
Thus a part of the university city of Armagh became
known as "Saxon Armagh," and likewise part of Mayo
l See Vita Fridolini, auctore Balthero monacho, Mon. Germ. Hist., Script,
rer. Merovingr. Ill, 351-65, ed. Krusch; Colgan, Acta S. Hlb., Louv. 1645, I,
481, seq.; Mone, Quellensammlung der badischen Landesgeschichte, Karls.
1845, I; Acta SS. Mar., I, pp. 433-441.
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