CHAPTER XII.
Christianity improves the Social State of Ireland--A Saxon Invasion of Ireland--Domestic Wars--The English come to Ireland for Instruction--A Famine and Tempests--The First Danish Invasion--Cruelty of the Danes--The Black and White Gentiles--King Cormac Mac Cullinan--Cashel--Amlaff the Dane--Plunder of the Towns--Arrival of Sitric--Death of Nial Glundubh--The Circuit of Ireland--Malachy the Second--Entries in the Annals.
[A.D.

693-926.] Very few events of any special interest occur between the commencement of the seventh century and the Danish invasion.

The obituaries of ecclesiastics and details of foreign missions, which we have already recorded, are its salient points.

The wars of the Saxon Heptarchy and the Celtic Pentarchy almost synchronize, though we find several Irish kings influenced by the examples of sanctity with which they were surrounded, and distinguished for piety, while Charlemagne pronounces their neighbours a perfidious and perverse race, worse than pagans.
There can be no doubt that Charlemagne's high opinion of the Irish was caused by the fact, that so many of the heads of his schools were of that nation, which was then in the vanguard of civilization and progress.

The cloister, always the nursery of art, the religious, always the promoters of learning, were pre-eminent in this age for their devotion to literary pursuits.