Lit. 'Saxon school'. This was the permanent English community of pilgrims to be found in Rome, which had existed for some time by the mid-9c. It was sufficiently large to have been noted as contributing men for the defence of Rome in 846. However, it was destroyed by fire several times. One occasion, in 847, was much later the subject of a painting by Raphael, Incendio del Borgo (Fire in the Borgo), c. 1511. After that fire, the pope issued in 854, a *bull organising the Schola Saxonum into a pilgrim community with property to support itself. The English themselves referred to this district of Rome as a *burh; the Italian is borgo. -
Cf. Peter's pence
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Christopher Coredon with Ann Williams.