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Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum
became known as "Mayo of the Saxons." The Danish inroads
interrupted the stream but did not stop it. The
rise of the numerous Irish foundations in Britain and
on the Continent naturally served to make the long journey
to Ireland superfluous and diminished the volume of
those who resorted thither. But the attraction of Ireland
as the university of the West long remained potent, and
foreign stu'dents were found in Ireland in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries as well as in the sixth and seventh.
Aldhelm's petulant outburst in the seventh century over
the students who neglected the English schools and flocked
to Ireland is matched by parallel testimony in the eleventh
century. "Why Hoes Ireland," writes Aldhelm to three
English students just returned from Ireland, "pride her-
self on a sort of priority in that such numbers of students
flock there from England?" On the other hand we have
the biographer of Sulger in the eleventh century telling
us how he went to Ireland to study "after the fashion of
his ancestors."