of the same character
as the establishments in Ireland. Many of these Celtic buildings were
made of the branches of trees and supported by wooden props. It was some
time before properly-constructed wooden churches or monasteries became
general in these wild regions. In such rude huts small libraries were
collected and the monks trained to preach. Ireland was then the center
of knowledge in the North. Greek, Latin, music and such science as the
monks possessed were taught to eager pupils. Copies of their manuscripts
are still to be found all over Europe. Their schools were open to the
rich and poor alike. The monks went from house to house teaching and
distributing literature. As late as the sixteenth century, students from
various parts of the Continent were to be found in these Irish schools.

There is an interesting story related of Columba's literary activities.
It is said that on one occasion while visiting his master, Finnian, he
undertook to make a clandestine copy of the abbot's Psalter. When the
master learned of the fact, he indignantly charged Columba with theft,
and demanded the copy which he had made, on the ground that a copy made
without permission of the author was the property of the original owner,
because a transcript is the offspring of the original work. Putnam, to
whom I am indebted for this story, says: "As far as I have been able to
ascertain, this is the first instance which occurs in the history of
European literature of a contention for a copyright." The conflict for
this copyright afterwards developed into a civil war. The copy of the
Latin Psalter "was enshrined in the base of a portable altar as the
national relic of the O'Donnell clan," and was preserved by that family
for thirteen hundred years. It was placed on exhibition as late as 1867,
in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy.

Enough has now been said to enable the reader to understand something of
the spirit and labors of the monks in an age characteristically
barbaric. For five centuries, from the fifth to the tenth, the
condition of Europe was deplorable. "It may be doubted," says an old
writer, "whether the worst of the Caesars exceeded in dark malignity, or
in capriciousness of vengeance, the long-haired kings of France." The
moral sense of even the most saintly churchmen seems to have been
blunted by familiarity with atrocities and crimes. Brute force was the
common method of exercising control and administering justice. The
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