We may infer from the fragment referred to in the _Annals of Ulster_ that the saint was an accomplished scholar and writer. He was the author of a Rule for his monks, of which, however, no trace remains. He seems to have been especially skilled in Sacred Scripture, the knowledge of which was the foundation of all the theology known at that time. Besides the Rule for his monks, and the Letters already referred to, it seems that Mochta was also the original author of a work called the _Book of the Monks_, or the _Book of Cuana_. It is cited by the author of the _Annals of Ulster_ under date of the year A.D. 471. In the same _Annals of Ulster_, A.D. 527, the same work seems to be referred to; it is there called the _Book of Mochod_. It was probably a series of annals begun in the monastery of Louth by St. Mochta, or Maucteus, and afterwards continued under the direction of the abbots, his successors. O'Curry thinks that the _Book of Cuana_, quoted in the _Annals of Ulster_, was written at Treoit (now Trevit), in Meath, by a scribe of that place called Cuana, whose death is recorded in the same Annals, A.D. 738, after which the book is quoted no more. We are rather inclined to think that Cuana, or Cuanu, from whom this book gets its name, was the person whose death is noticed by the Four Masters in A.D. 823, and who is described in the _Annals of Ulster_, A.D. 824, as Cuana of Lughmadh, or Louth, "a wise man and a bishop," as the Four Masters also describe him. It seems highly probable therefore, that this work was begun by Maucteus in Louth, that it afterwards was called the _Book of the Monks_, and finally the _Book of Cuana_, the wise man and bishop, who was probably its compiler in the shape in which it is quoted in the _Annals of Ulster_, first under the year A.D. 468, and for the last time under date A.D. 610. The death of this distinguished bishop and scholar, "who was a man of uncommon erudition, and as a doctor was universally esteemed," marks the period at which the School of Louth reached the zenith of its fame. It were bootless to tell how it was again and again burned and pillaged by the Danes, who during the tenth century seem to have taken permanent possession of the monastery, although a round tower had been built to protect it, which was blown down in A.D. 981. The Celtic princes during the eleventh century frequently imitated the bad example of the Danes, for we are told that in A.D. 1043 one of the O'Rorkes organized a plundering expedition, or a hosting, as they loved to call it, against the monasteries of Louth and Dromiskin.