It is in these cradles of western monasticism that we must try to find the true character of the monasticism, as well as of the discipline and ritual, which St. Patrick introduced into Ireland. If, as the _Tripartite_ asserts, St. Patrick spent some thirty years in France and Italy, and the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea, preparing for the work for which Providence destined him in Ireland, he had ample time to visit all their celebrated monasteries, and doubtless spent some of these years not only at Marmoutier of St. Martin, and with St. German at Auxerre, but also with Cassian at St. Victor's, and with Honoratus in Lerins, and probably also at Arles. The _Tripartite_ states distinctly that first of all he resolved to go to Rome, the citadel and mistress of Christian faith and doctrine, in order that he might draw from these fountains of true wisdom and orthodox doctrine; that he went to France and even beyond the Alps to the southern region of Italy where he found Germanus, then a most famous bishop, with whom he read, like another Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, the ecclesiastical canons, serving God in labour, in fasting, in chastity, in compunction, and in love of God and his neighbour. The same writer adds that he went to St. Martin's of Tours to receive tonsure, and that he studied at Arles--or what he calls _insula Aralanensis_--which he seems to confound with the city of St. Germanus. We are also told that when he was in the Tyrrhene Sea[163] he met three other Patricks, which is not at all unlikely, for Patrick was a common name, and the great monastery of Lerins had attracted strangers from every part of the Christian world, who had established themselves in some of the neighbouring islets. These three Patricks lived together in a rocky cave between the cliff and the sea, and our Patrick wished to live with them in the solitary service of God. But it was only for a time, for God had destined him for another and loftier purpose. It is quite evident, however, that Patrick was trained under the greatest masters of the spiritual life, and in the greatest monastic schools of the Western Church. These considerations will also serve to explain why the Irish Church of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries was so monastic in its character and tendencies, why the religious houses rather than the cathedrals were the centres of its spiritual life, and also why its greatest schools were in the halls of the cloister, and its greatest scholars wore the frontal tonsure and the monk's cowl.