This study has thus far demonstrated the ways in which the practices and pedagogies of late antique Latin grammar and rhetoric were adapted in the production of Latin learning in early medieval Ireland. As these are among the earliest extant texts produced within Ireland, they serve us well as a starting point in an investigation of this nature and scope. In the eighth century, the vernacular tradition flowered in its own right, and secular and Biblical Latin learning were integral to the production of this literature. However, there was also a learned class present in Ireland prior to the arrival of the Church, and their traditions were integrated with Latin learning in the formation of a syncretic, vernacular tradition, the fruits of which are ripe for rhetorical studies.

As was alluded to above, there has been continued debate regarding the antiquity of native pseudo-history and poetry preserved in monastic scriptoria. That debate is too extensive to treat fully here. However, it should be noted that regardless of whether we might think of the extant texts as representative of an oral tradition is not necessarily of significance. Texts that will be referred to as ‘native’, or ‘secular’, are extant solely due to the introduction of writing by the Church. Furthermore, collaboration between clerics and the native learned community of Ireland led to their composition. Therefore, what we refer to as ‘native’ must be viewed in this light; such texts are still ‘Christian’ texts. Though we can never fully understand the nature of a native, oral tradition prior to the development of a vernacular literature, it is clear that such a tradition was used in the development of a learned tradition that fused Latin learning with the practices, themes, tropes, and motifs of Irish culture.

This chapter will begin with a discussion of the school of the filid, a learned caste born of the fusion of ecclesiastics and secular scholars and organized according to a strict hierarchy. We will then turn our attention to an example of a learned text, written in prosimetric form, associated with a poetic-legal school, the ‘Nemed School’, titled ‘The Cauldron of Poetry and Learning’ (hereafter, ‘The Cauldron’). I will situate this text within its historical and socio-cultural context in order to better understand the persuasive nature of poetico-legal discourses in early Ireland, as well as its portrayal of the liberal arts.