Moengal was succeeded in 890 A.D. by Tuathal (latinised Tuotilo and
sometimes Tutilo), his pupil and fellow-countryman. Tuotilo (d. 915
A.D.) was even more famous than his master and was not only a skilled
musician but was famed as a poet, orator, painter, goldsmith, builder
and sculptor. We are told that he was a skilled performer on the cruit
and psaltery. Père Schubiger published many of the _tropes_ composed
by Tuotilo. Flood assures us that two of these _Hodie Cantandus_ and
_Omnipotens Genator_ betray the well-known characteristics of Irish
music.[435] Tuotilo also composed the famous farced _Kyrie, Fons
Bonitatis_, included in the Vatican collection of Kyriale.[436]
Another famous pupil of Moengal’s was Notker or Notker Balbulus the
author of a valuable collection of hymns known as _Liber Ymnorum
Notkeri_ which was illuminated by an Irish artist. Notker shed undying
lustre on the school of St. Gall and was one of the most celebrated
musicians of the Middle Ages.[437]
St. Gall was not the only monastery of Irish origin in which the study
of music was pursued with success. Indeed, the musical influence of
the Irish monks was felt over the whole west of Europe wherever their
monasteries were established, not only in Ireland and Scotland but
also throughout a large part of England, France, Belgium, Germany,
Italy and Austria.[438]
Hymnologists are more or less familiar with the hymns composed by
Irish poets such as Sedulius, Dungal and Moengal, and by saints like
Sechnall, Columba, Molaise, Cuchuimne, Columban, Ultan, Colman,
Cummian, Aengus, Fiacc, Brodan, Sanctan and Moelisu.[439]
Thus did the Irish monks both by their teaching and by their writings
promote the cultivation of music in a very practical way. Nor was the
theoretical aspect of music neglected. Donnchadh, an Irish bishop of
the ninth century, who died abbot of Remigius, wrote a commentary on
the work of Martianus Capella, a well-known volume on the “Liberal
Arts,” a section of which treats of music. The greatest of his
contemporaries, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, in his famous philosophical
work _De Divisione Naturae_, written in 867 A.D. expounds _organum_
or _discant_ a hundred years before the appearance of _Scholia
Enchiriadis_ and _Musica Enchiriadis_.[440] He also wrote a commentary
on _Martianus Capella_ which is now in a Paris MS. of the ninth
century.[441]
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