n as "Hospitalia Scottorum" ("Hospices
for the Irish"), and their benefactors were not only pious laymen but
the highest ecclesiastical authorities. Sometimes the hospices were
diverted to purposes other than those originally intended, and then
Church Councils would intervene in favor of the lawful inheritors.
Thus in 845 we read that the Council of Meaux ordered the hospices in
France to be restored to the dispossessed Irishmen. In the twelfth
century Ireland still continued to send forth a constant succession
of monk-pilgrims, renowned for faith, austerity, and piety.

RATISBON: Special monasteries were erected to be peopled by the
Irish. The most renowned of these dates from 1067, when Marianus
Scotus ("Marianus the Irishman"), with his companions, John and
Candidus, left his native land and arrived in Bavaria. These holy men
were welcomed at Ratisbon by the Bishop Otto; and on the advice of
Murcherat, an Irish recluse, took up their residence near St. Peter's
church at the outskirts of the city. Novices flocked from Ireland to
join them and a monastery was erected to receive the community. In a
short time this had to be replaced by a still larger one, which was
known to future ages as the Abbey of St. James's of the Scots (that
is, Irish) at Ratisbon. How prolific was this parent foundation is
evidenced from its many offshoots, the only surviving monasteries on
the continent for many centuries intended for Irish brethren. These,
besides St. James's at Erfurt and St. Peter's at Ratisbon, comprised
St. James's at Wuertzburg, St. Giles's at Nuremberg, St. Mary's at
Vienna, St. James's at Constance, St. Nicholas's at Memmingen, Holy
Cross at Eichstatt, a Priory at Kelheim and another at Oels in
Silesia, all of which were founded during the twelfth or thirteenth
century, and formed a Benedictine congregation approved of by Pope
Innocent III., and presided over by the Abbot of Ratisbon. These
Irish houses, with their long lines of Celtic abbots, in the days of
their prosperity did much work that was excellent and civilizing, and
rightly deserve a remembrance in the achievements of Ireland's
ancient missionaries.

Ratisbon and its dependent abbeys, as is set forth in the papal
briefs of 1218, possessed priories in Ireland, and, from these,
novices were usually obtained.

But evil days came for the Congregation of St. James, and now it is
extinct. The subjugation of Ireland to England, says Wattenbach,
contributed no do