It is to such monks that we owe all our knowledge of the earliest history
of England and Ireland; though doubtless the hand that wrote the histories
of Gildas and Bede grew as tired as that of Brandan, or as that of the
monk who wrote in the corner of a beautiful manuscript: "He who does not
know how to write imagines it to be no labor; but though only three
fingers hold the pen, the whole body grows weary." In the same way Brandan
may have learned music and have had an organ in his monastery, or have had
a school of art, painting beautiful miniatures for the holy missals. This
was his early life in the convent.

[Footnote 1: _Adde ut aurem tangas digito sicut canis cum pede
pruriens solet, quia nec immerito infideles tali animati comparantur_.
--MARTENE, _De Antiq. Monach. ritibus_, p. 289, qu. by Montalembert,
Monks of the West (tr.) VI. 190.]

Once a day they were called to food; this consisting for them of bread
and vegetables with no seasoning but salt, although better fare was
furnished for the sick and the aged, for travellers and the poor. These
last numbered, at Easter time, some three or four hundred, who constantly
came and went, and upon whom the monks and young disciples waited. After
the meal the monks spent three hours in the chapel, on their knees, still
silent; then they confessed in turn to the abbot and then sought their
hard-earned rest. They held all things in common; no one even received a
gift for himself. War never reached them; it was the rarest thing for an
armed party to molest their composure; their domains were regarded as a
haven for the stormy world. Because there were so many such places in
Ireland, it was known as The Isle of Saints.

Brandan was sent after a time to other abbeys, where he could pursue
especial studies, for they had six branches of learning,--grammar,