nastic institutions, which Alfred had endeavoured partly to restore, 

 having ceased to exist, there were no pubhc schools established in 

 their stead ;"* and it is said that scarcely a priest in Britain could 

 then be found capable of translating, much less of writing, a Latin 

 letter j-f- an ignorance which also prevailed in Scotland, " ubi litera*' 

 rum studio neglecta erant."J 



Of continental missions undertaken in this and the preceding 

 interval, Vernulaeus, in his work "De Propagatione fidei Christianas 

 in Belgio per sanctos ex Hibernia," gives a very gratifying history, 

 detailing their successful preaching in Mechlin, Brabant, Flanders, 

 Artois, Haynault, Namur, Leyden, Gilderland, Holland, Friesland, 

 and Luxembourg. In Ludewig's " ReHquiae MSS.," (vol. 4. p. 244, 

 &c.) occurs the charter of the monastery of Saint Mary at Vienna, 

 to which the founder, Henry Duke of Austria, in 1161, makes only 

 Scots eligible on account of their long and acknowledged piety. And 

 in the eighth volume of the same work, p. 52, the book of the Irish 

 monastery of Ratisbon is mentioned; also at p. 50, an Irish monastery 

 in Wurzburg, and another near Memmingen. See also to the same 

 point Bucelin " Aquila Imp. Bened." It was in this interval too 

 that the monastery of Irish missionaries was established at Cologne, 

 of which Marianus Scotus, and Florentius Wigorniensis speak with 

 such encomiums. 



_,„,The religious opinions of the Danes are not strictly within the 

 scope of this Essay; a short sketch, however, of their singular belief, 

 with a general reference to Mallet's Northern Antiquities may not be 

 unacceptable. They believed in three supreme gods; Odin or Woden, 

 analogous to the Roman Jupiter, Frya to Venus but of chaster attri- 



* Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 395. f Mabillon, Annal. Bened. ad ann. 940. 



X Mabillon, Annal. Bened, ad ann. 944. 



