Under his influence a school was formed at Canterbury; and thus the other great fountain of knowledge, the Greek tongue, was opened in England in the year of our Lord 669.
The southern parts of England received their improvements directly through the channel of Rome.

The kingdom of Northumberland, as soon as it was converted, began to contend with the southern provinces in an emulation of piety and learning.

The ecclesiastics then [there ?] also kept up and profited by their intercourse with Rome; but they found their principal resources of knowledge from another and a more extraordinary quarter.

The island of Hii, or Columbkill,[46] is a small and barren rock in the Western Ocean.

But in those days it was high in reputation as the site of a monastery which had acquired great renown for the rigor of its studies and the severity of its ascetic discipline.
Its authority was extended over all the northern parts of Britain and Ireland; and the monks of Hii even exercised episcopal jurisdiction over all those regions.