Sedulius Scot
T)US (FL. 848-858. Poet and scholar. During ten years at Liège, which he established as an important center of his native Irish culture, Sedulius gained a reputation for versatility if not profundity. His poetry, whether religious, bucolic, mock epic, or occasional, is unique in its time for variety of meter. He compiled unoriginal collectanea on Paul's epistles and Matthew; that on grammar exhibits wide reading, especially Cicero. His theologically oriented de rectoribus Christianis, on Christian government, was perhaps a Fürstenspiegel for his pupil, a son of Lothair I, Carolingian emperor. Based on patristic, especially Augustinian, authority, it held that kings have primacy over religious leaders.