Monachism of this Eastern type came from Gaul to Ireland.[4] St. Patrick received his sacred education at Marmoutier; under Germanus at Auxerre; and possibly at Lérins. His companions on his mission to Ireland, and the missionaries who followed him, nearly all came from the same centres. Naturally, therefore, the same practices would be observed, not only in regard to religious discipline and organisation, but in regard to instruction and study. Even the mysterious Palladius, Patrick’s forerunner, is said to have left books in Ireland.[5] But the earliest important references to that use of books which distinguishes the educated missionary from the mere fanatical recluse are in connexion with Patrick. Pope Sixtus is said to have given him books in plenty to take with him to Ireland. Later he is supposed to have visited Rome, whence he brought books home to Armagh.[6] He gave copies of parts of the Scriptures to Irish chieftains. To one Fiacc he gave a case containing a bell, a crosier, tablets, and a meinister, which, according to Dr. Lanigan, may have been a cumdach enclosing the Gospels and the vessels for the sacred ministry, or, according to Dr. Whitley Stokes, simply a credence-table.[7] He sometimes gave a missal (_lebar nuird_). He had books at Tara. On one occasion his books were dropped into the water and were “drowned.” Presumably the books he distributed came from the Gallic schools, although his followers no doubt began transcribing as opportunity offered and as material came to hand. Patrick himself wrote alphabets, sometimes called the “elements”; most likely the elements or the A B C of the Christian doctrine, corresponding with the “primer.”[8]
This was the dawn of letters for Ireland. By disseminating the Scriptures and these primers, Patrick and his followers, and the train of missionaries who came afterwards,[9] secured the knowledge and use of the Roman alphabet. The way was clear for the free introduction of schools and books and learning. “St. Patrick did not do for the Scots what Wulfilas did for the Goths, and the Slavonic apostles for the Slavs; he did not translate the sacred books of his religion into Irish and found a national church literature.... What Patrick, on the other hand, and his fellow-workers did was to diffuse a knowledge of Latin in Ireland. To the circumstance that he adopted this line of policy, and did not attempt to create a national ecclesiastical language, must be ascribed the rise of the schools of learning which distinguished Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries.”[10]