Eriugena's Immediate Influence (Note on the same book of O'Meara, Chapter 11)

In the Gesta episcoporum Autissiodorensium one reads that Wicbald (Guibaud), Bishop of Auxerre (879), was a disciple of Eriugena.

Eriugena was in the palace school of Charles the Bald. Indications show that he remained there from the early fifties until perhaps the late seventies of the ninth century. But it is unknown where this palace school was. It might have been in Laon, or in the neighbourhood, at Quierzy or Compiègne.

Two persons are especially important: Wulfad and Winibert. The Periphyseon was dedicated to Wulfad. Wulfad was a cleric of Reims, ordained by Ebbon but unrecognized by Hincmar, he became tutor of Charles the Bald's son Carloman (854-60), than abbot of Montierender (855-6), abbot of Saint-Médard at Soisson (858), abbot of Rebais (after 860), finally archbishop of Bourges. *(very important fact!):

"A list of some thirty-one books in his library show that it contained many of the same Greek authors as are found in Laon. It also contained Eriugena's translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius and the Quaestiones ad Thalassium of Maximus the Confessor as well as the Periphyseon. The list itself was written on the penultimate leaf of a volume containing Eriugena's translation of Maximus's Ambigua" (p. 199).

Manuscript Laon 24 contains a letter to a certain dominus Winibertus (according to J.J. Contreni the abbot of Schuttern in the diocese of Strasbourg) in which Eriugena expresses regret that he and Winibert had been separated so that their work on Martinaus Capella had become difficult.

Martin the Irishman, who taught at the cathedral school in Laon, belonged to the group of Irish in Laon whom Eriugena knew there. Martin used poems of Eriugena in his handbook MS Laon 444.

MS Paris BN lat. 10307 contains extracts from the Greek-Latin glossary of Martin and also a verse concerning Fergus and two distichs identified as Eriugena's by C. Leonardi.

Fergus was a close friend of Sedulius. Both Sedulius and Fergus are metioned in the marginalia of the ninth-century Codex Bernensis 363 along with Eriugena and some twelve other Irish contemparies. Also included in the marginalia are Gottschalk, Hincmar, and Ratramnus. Authors referred to in the MS are Donatus, Fulgentius, Hadrian, Honoratus, Isidore, Martinaus Capella, Priscian, Sergius, and Virgilius. The combination of all these naems of Eriugena's contemporaries suggest a common interest in the themes associated with the authors detailed. The name of Eriugena is entered over and over again aomong the marginalia of this manuscript, opposite passages relevant to Eriugena's teaching, and it is clear that the glossators knew the Periphyseon. Fergus, described as a grammaticus, is probably also to be associated with Eriugena and Bishop Pardulus of Laon in relation to a medicament recommended for the removal of unwanted hair (curious thing).

Two pupils of Eriugena: Elias, an Irishman, later bishop of Angoulême (861-75) and Wicbald, later bishop of Auxerre (879-87). In biblical glosses attributed to Eriugena some fifty words in Old Irish are used as glosses on the Old Testament.

Others who were influenced by him: Almannus of Hautvillers and Hucbald of St. Amand, the latter made a florilegium of Eriugenan thoughts.

Heiric of Auxerre, author of Life of St Germanus, Collectanea, Homiliary. He borrowed from Eriugena in his Life of St. Germanus and Homiliary. In the Life of St. Germanus: the same language, the same themes, the same insertion of occasional Greek words or verses. Also his Homiliaryis heavily indebted to Eriugena's Homily on the Prolouge to St. John's Gospel. Heiric was in his Life of St. Germanus indebted to Periphyseon I-III. The Homily reveals that he knew Periphyseon IV and V as well.

Three ancient texts were glossed by those engaged in teaching and learning: Martianus Capella's De nuptiis (glossed by Eriugena and Marin); Boethius's Opuscula sacra and the Categoriae decem (a worled attributed to Augustine and used extensively by Eriugena in the first book of Periphyseon). 

Heiric might have become a follower of Eriugena through his teacher Remigius of Auxerre Remigius might have been born in Ireland in the early forties. He is first identified as a monk at the abbey of St-Germain at Auxerre, wrote a commentary on the Consolatio of Boethius and a commentary on Martianus Capella.