Saint Clement of Ireland (Clemens Scotus) (ca. 750 – 818) is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church. Born in Ireland, about the year 771 he set out for France. His biographer, an Irish monk of St. Gall, who wrote his Acts, dedicated to Charles the Fat (d. 888), says that St. Clement with his companion Albinus, or Ailbe, arrived in Gaul in 772, and announced himself as a vender of learning. So great was the fame of Clement and Ailbe that Charlemagne sent for them to come to his court, where they stayed for some months. Ailbe was then given the direction of a monastery near Pavia, but Clement was requested to remain in France as the master of a higher school of learning. These events may have taken place in the winter of the year 774, after Charlemagne had been in Italy.