In these episcopal monasteries Luidger established a course of sacred studies, over which he personally presided. Such was, in fact, the universal discipline observed by the German missionaries, and hence the institution of cathedral schools spread over every province from Denmark to the mountains of the Tyrol. There we find the same class of foundations established by St. Virgil, Bishop of Saltzburg, concerning whom it will be necessary to speak a little more particularly. He was a native of Ireland, and held to be one of the most learned men of his time. It appears probable, though it is by no means certain, that he is the same Virgil who, when still a simple priest, was sent into Bavaria, together with Sidonius, and was there reported to have given expression to certain scientific theories of doubtful orthodoxy. It is not easy at the present day to determine precisely what the supposed errors were, as the only notice of them that remains occurs in a letter from St. Boniface to Pope Zachary, wherein Virgil is charged with teaching “that there is another world, and other men under the earth, another sun and another moon.” The reply of the Pope was to the effect that if on examination by a council Virgil should be convicted of teaching this “perverse doctrine,” he should be degraded; and the matter was finally settled by his being summoned to Rome, where inquiry was made into the facts of the case. It would seem that his explanation of his own doctrine must have proved satisfactory, if the priest Virgil here spoken of were the same who was shortly afterwards raised to the see of Saltzburg, and who in 1233 was solemnly canonised by Pope Gregory IX. These facts have, however, furnished the groundwork of a story which has been repeated by D’Alembert, and adopted with all its crowd of attendant blunders by a host of modern imitators. According to this version, Virgil, Bishop of Saltzburg, was excommunicated by St. Boniface for teaching the existence of the antipodes, and this sentence is represented to have been confirmed by Pope Zachary.[64] It will be seen, however, that the person of whose doctrines Boniface complained was not a bishop, but a priest; that the opinions attributed to him bore no reference to the antipodes; that he was not excommunicated; and that so far from either passing or confirming such a sentence, the Holy See examined, and it is to be presumed approved his doctrine, since it raised him to a bishopric, and at a subsequent period canonised him. St. Boniface reported the supposed errors of Virgil as they were reported to him, and whatever may be understood by the expressions which he quotes, they cannot be held to signify a belief in the antipodes. They rather seem to point to some theory of the existence of another race of men, distinct in origin from the sons of Adam, who therefore shared neither in original sin nor the benefits of redemption, errors which, as Baronius shows,