222 



In this establishment at Mayo, the Oswald received his education, 

 who has been mentioned* as baptised in Ireland, and who after- 

 wards sent-f" for teachers thence to instruct the Northumbrians ; and 

 in this monastery most probably the Northumbrian prince, Alfred, 

 studied, as suggested by BedeJ and Harpsfeld ;§ while Bede also 

 saysjll that the sons of King ^Edelfrid were welcomed and taught 

 among the Scots. 



There are abundant testimonies extant as to the system of educa- 

 tion, that gave the Irish schools so decided a preference.** After 

 theology, which justly and necessarily engaged a paramount atten- 

 tion, the sciences cultivated in these seminaries were grammar, rhe- 

 toric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. •f-f- Each 

 principal of a seminary propounded treatises on these sciences to his 

 pupils, and a very curious work comprehending all those subjects, 

 and written about the year 466, by Martianus Capella, has come 

 down to the present day, and is admitted even by Ledwich,|.:]: to 

 have formed one of the books of instruction in the Irish course ; in- 

 deed two comments, which are still in existence, written by Irishmen, 

 (Scotus Erigena, and Duncant,) put the matter beyond a question. 

 Capella's treatise is therefore a just criterion of the scientific pursuits 



* A)ite,p.206. f Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. vol. 2. p. 417. 



I " Aldfridum Hibemi Doctores erudiebant." — Eccl. Hist. lib. 5. c. 19. and lib. 3. c. 7. 



§ " ^Ifredum * » * * * invitatum ex Hibernia a proceribus ad regnum capes- 

 send um, ubi exul sed magno suo bono delituerat. Literis sacris prsesertim egregie ibidem 

 animum excoluit, in quarum insigniter cognitione profecerat, et administrandae reipublicse 

 magis inde idoneus redditus est." 



II Eccl. Hist. lib. 3. c. 1. 



** " Magistros docuisse secundum formam studiorum antiquorum cum divinis videlicet 

 studiis, humaniorem etiam literaturam conjungentes." — Cited Primord. p. 710. 



ft See Sylloge. Aldhelm's Letter to Eadfrid and O'Conor's Rer. Hib. Script, p. 169, &c. 

 It Antiquities, p. 352. 



