St. Aidan, Apostle of Northumbria. In the eighth century
the most illustrious names are St. Cataldus, Bishop of
Tarentum; St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona; St. Rumold, Apostle
of Brabant; Clement and Albinus, "the Wisdom-seekers;"
and St. Feargal or Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburgh. Of
holy women in the same ages, we have some account of
St. Samthan, in the eighth century; of St. Bees,
St. Dympna and St. Syra, in the seventh century, and of
St. Monina, St. Ita of Desies, and St. Bride, or Bridget,
of Kildare, in the sixth. The number of conventual
institutions for women established in those ages, is less
easily ascertained than the number of monastic houses
for men; but we may suppose them to have borne some
proportion to each other, and to have even counted by
hundreds. The veneration in which St. Bridget was held
during her life, led many of her countrywomen to embrace
the religious state, and no less than fourteen _Saints_,
her namesakes, are recorded. It was the custom of those
days to call all holy persons who died in the odour of
sanctity, _Saints_, hence national or provincial tradition
venerates very many names, which the reader may look for
in vain, in the Roman calendar.

The intellectual labours of the Irish schools, besides
the task of teaching such immense numbers of men of all
nations on their own soil, and the missionary conquests
to which I have barely alluded, were diversified by
controversies, partly scientific and partly theological
--such as the "Easter Controversy," the "Tonsure
Controversy," and that maintained by "Feargal the Geometer,"