 Nothing is known about Eriugena’s place or date of birth or of the circumstances of his early life, but, on the basis of circumstantial evidence and some surviving testimonia (helpfully gathered in Brennan 1986), it is conjectured that he was born in Ireland around 800 or possibly slightly earlier (c. 790). His Irish provenance is confirmed by the fact that he self-consciously signed his translation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ works with the neologism “Eriugena” (Patrologia Latina, hereafter PL, 122: 1236a) meaning “Irish born”, a word possibly modelled on the Virgilian “Graiugena” (Aeneid 3.550, see Heyworth &amp; Morwood, 2017: 223). The word “Eriugena” became corrupted to “Erigena” in twelfth century library entries (e.g., the Cluny catalogue) and by the seventeenth century it became common to refer to him as “John Scot(t)us Erigena” (e.g., by Bishop Ussher and Thomas Gale). A scattering of Old Irish words used to explain difficult or recondite Latin terms, in his Biblical glosses (Glossae; see edition by Contreni &amp; Ó Néill, 1997), is further evidence of his Irish origin and of the presence of Irish students in his audience (since the time of Charlemagne Irish scholars had constituted a considerable presence in the Frankish court, where they were renowned for their learning).