in the eighth-century, manuscript evidence begins. in a short treatise on the various cursus entitled "ratio de cursus qui fuerunt ex auctores" (sic in cott. manuscripts, nero a. ii, in the british museum), written about the middle of the eighth century, probably by an irish monk in france, is found perhaps the earliest attribution of the milan use to st. ambrose, though it quotes the authority of st. augustine, probably alluding to the passage already mentioned: "est et alius cursus quem refert beatus augustinus episcopus quod beatus ambrosius propter hereticorum ordinem dissimilem composuit quem in italia antea de cantabatur" (there is yet another cursus which the blessed bishop augustine says that the blessed ambrose composed because of the existence of a different use of the heretics, which previously used to be sung in italy).