![]() The manufacture by professional copyists of the books of devotion required for the services of the church, which had died of neglect in Rome, and which had been driven out of Constantinople by the hostility of the iconoclastic emperors, re-appeared in Ireland, with unprecedented elegance of workmanship. Ecclesiastics were required, by virtue of their position, to study Latin, but there were many in high station, even as late as the fourteenth century, who were barely able to read, and many more who could not write. The study of Latin would have been neglected, and its literature forgotten, if this dead language had not been the language of the Scriptures, of the canons and liturgies of the church, and of the writings of the fathers. The church kept it to and for itself hedging it in with difficulty and mystery, and making it inaccessible to poor people. The knowledge derived through these narrow channels may have been imperfect, but it was a power. Scholastic theology and metaphysical philosophy were the studies which took precedence of all others. Science, as we now understand the word, and classical literature, were sadly neglected. A liberal education was of no value to any one who did not propose to be a monk or priest. During this period there was no literature worthy of the name that was not in the dead language Latin, and but little of any kind that did not treat of theology. They wrote the books, kept the libraries, and taught the schools. ![]() ![]() F rom the sixth to the thirteenth century, the ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic church held all the keys of scholastic knowledge. ![]()
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