Above: Map revealing the Celtic Tribe of Roman Gaul (click map to enlarge)

In the chronicles of the reign of Charlemagne there is mention made of how two of these learned Scots were brought before the Emperor. They had arrived at the coast of Gaul in company with British merchants, and were “men learned beyond compare as well in secular as in sacred writings.” They had none of the ordinary objects of mer­chandise for sale, but kept crying to the crowd who came to buy, ” If any man is desirous of wisdom let him come to us and receive it, for we have it to sell.”

Eric of Auxerre writing in the middle of the ninth century a dedication to Charles the Bald of a poem on St. Germanus of Auxerre, testifies to the nationality of the majorily of the men of learning then in France. ” What need is there,” he writes, ” to speak of Ireland, which seta at naught the peril of the sea, and migrates almost in one body to our shores, with its crowds of philosophers who voluntarily subject themselves to exile.” At one and the same time we find John Scotus Erigena lecturing at the Royal School at Paris, Sedulius Scotus and Findan teach­ing at Lieg-e and llheinau, and the Irish Abbot Moengal, who was famed alike for his know­ledge of theology and secular science, presid­ing over the great monastery of St. Gall at a period when it was one of the foremost schools in Europe.

Below: Painting of St. Germanus of Auxerre

Clemens, an Irishman, was tutor to the future Emperor Lothaire and continued his labours at the court seminary after Charlemagne’s death. His reputation was so great that the Abbot of Fulda sent some of his best pupils from the monastery to study grammar under the Irish monk, and he is known in the court records as Instructor of the Imperial Court. Dungal, another Irishman, gained fame as a theologian, an astronomer and a poet. ” Dungal, John Scotus, Clemens, Sedulius and Moengal,” writes Zimmer, ” are representatives of a higher culture than was to be found in the Continent of their day; to a purely Christian training, and a severely simple habit of mind, they joined the highest theoretical attainments, based upon a thorough knowledge of the best standards of classical antiquity. These Irishmen had a high mission entrusted to them, and they faithfully accomplished their task.