A Short History of Monks and Monasteries written by Alfred Wesley Wishart

A >> Alfred Wesley Wishart >> A Short History of Monks and Monasteries

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

[Footnote H: Appendix, Note H.]

The doctrine of probabilism is founded upon the distinctions between
opinions that are sure, less sure, or more sure. There are several
schools of probabilists, but the doctrine itself practically amounts to
this: Since uncertainty attaches to many of our decisions in moral
affairs, one must follow the more probable rule, but not always, cases
often arising when it is permissible to follow a rule contrary to the
more probable one. Furthermore, as the Jesuits made war upon individual
authority, which was the key-note of the Reformation, and contended for
the authority of the church, the teaching naturally followed, that the
opinion of "a grave doctor" may be looked upon "as possessing a fair
amount of probability, and may, therefore, be safely followed, even
though one's conscience insist upon the opposite course." It is easy to
see that this opens a convenient door to those who are seeking
justification for conduct which their consciences condemn. No doubt one
can find plausible excuses for the basest crimes, if he stills the voice
of conscience and trusts himself to confusing sophistry. The glory of
God, the gravity of circumstances, necessity, the good of the church or
of the order, and numerous other practical reasons can be urged to
remove scruples and make a bad act seem to be a good one. But crime,
even "for the glory of God," is crime still.

This disagreeable subject will not be pursued further. To say less than
has been said would be to ignore one of the most prominent causes of the
Jesuits' ruin. To say more than this, even though the facts might
warrant it, would incur the liability of being classed among those
malicious fomentors of religious strife, for whom the writer has mingled
feelings of pity and contempt. The Society of Jesus is not the Roman
Catholic Church, which has suffered much from the burden of
Jesuitism--wounds that are scarcely atoned for by the meritorious and
self-sacrificing services on her behalf in other directions. The
Protestant foes have never equaled the Catholic opponents of Jesuitism,
either in their fierce hatred of the system or in their ability to
expose its essential weakness. A writer in the "Quarterly Review,"
September, 1848, says: "Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits
divide, as far as feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a
schism deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant
against Protestant."

_The Mission of the Jesuits_

The Society of Jesus has been described as "a naked sword, whose hilt is
at Rome, and whose point is everywhere." It is an undisputed historical
fact that Loyola's consuming passion was to accomplish the ruin of
Protestantism, which had twenty years the start of him and was
threatening the very existence of the Roman hierarchy. It has already
been shown that the destruction of heresy was the chief aim of the
Dominicans. What the friars failed to attain, Loyola attempted. The
principal object of the Jesuits was the maintenance of papal authority.
Even to-day the Jesuit does not hesitate to declare that his mission is
to overthrow Protestantism. The Reformation was inspired by a new
conception of individual freedom. The authority of tradition and of the
church was set at naught. Loyola planted his system upon the doctrine of
absolute submission to authority. The partial success of the Jesuits,
for they did beat back the Reformation, is no doubt attributable to
their fidelity, virtue and learning. Their devotion to the cause they
loved, their willingness to sacrifice life itself, their marvelous and
instantaneous obedience to the slightest command of their leaders, made
them a compact and powerful papal army. Their methods, in many
particulars, were not beyond question, and, whatever their character,
the order certainly incurred the fiercest hostility of every nation in
Europe, and even of the church itself.

Professor Anton Gindely, in his "History of the Thirty Years' War,"
shows that Maximilian, of Bavaria, and Ferdinand, of Austria, the
leaders on the Catholic side, were educated by Jesuits. He also fixes
the responsibility for that war partly upon them in the plainest terms:
"In a word, they had the consciences of Roman Catholic sovereigns and
their ministers in their hands as educators, and in their keeping as
confessors. They led them in the direction of war, so that it was at the
time, and has since been called the Jesuits' War."

The strictures of Carlyle, Macaulay, Thackeray, and Lytton have been
repeatedly denounced by the Jesuits, but even their shrewd, sophistical
defences of their order afford ample justification for the attitude of
their foes. For example, in a masterful oration, previously quoted from,
in which the virtues of the Jesuits are extolled and defended, Father
Sherman says: "We are expelled and driven from pillar to post because we
teach men to love God." He describes Loyola as "the knightly, the loyal,
the true, the father of heroes, and the maker of saints, the lover of
the all-good and the all-beautiful, crowned with the honor of sainthood,
the best-loved and the best-hated man in all the world, save only his
Master and ours." "'Twas he that conceived the daring plan of forging
the weapon to beat back the Reformation." No one but a Jesuit could
reconcile the aim of "preaching the love of God" with "beating back the
Reformation," especially in view of the methods employed.

Numerous gross calumnies have been circulated against the Society of
Jesus. The dread of a return to that deplorable intellectual and moral
slavery of the pre-Reformation days is so intense, that a calm,
dispassionate consideration of Jesuit history is almost impossible. But
after all just concessions have been made, two indisputable facts
confront the student: first, the universal antagonism to the order, of
the church that gave birth to it, as well as of the states that have
suffered from its meddling in political affairs; and second, the
complete failure of the order's most cherished schemes. France, Germany,
Switzerland, Spain, Great Britain and other nations, have been compelled
in sheer self-defence to expel it from their territories. Such a
significant fact needs some other explanation than that the Jesuit has
incurred the enmity of the world merely for preaching the love of God.

Clement XIV., when solemnly pronouncing the dissolution of the order, at
the time his celebrated bull, entitled "_Dominus ac Redemptor Noster_"
which was signed July 21, 1773, was made public, justified his action in
the following terms: "Recognizing that the members of this society have
not a little troubled the Christian commonwealth, and that for the
welfare of Christendom it were better that the order should disappear,"
etc. When Rome thus delivers her _ex cathedra_ opinion concerning her
own order, an institution which she knows better than any one else, one
cannot fairly be charged with prejudice and sectarianism in speaking
evil of it.

But while there is much to be detested in the methods of the order,
history does not furnish another example of such self-abnegation and
intense zeal as the Jesuits have shown in the prosecution of their aims.
They planted missions in Japan, China, Africa, Ceylon, Madagascar, North
and South America.

In Europe the Mendicant friars by their coarseness had disgusted the
upper classes; the affable and cultured Jesuit won their hearts. The
Jesuits became chaplains in noble families, learned the secrets of every
government in Europe, and became the best schoolmasters in the age. They
were to be found in various disguises in every castle of note and in
every palace. "There was no region of the globe," says Macaulay, "no
walk of speculative or active life in which Jesuits were not to be
found." That they were devoted to their cause no one can deny. They were
careless of life and, as one facetiously adds, of truth also. They
educated, heard confessions, plotted crimes and revolutions, and
published whole libraries. Worn out by fatigue, the Jesuits still toiled
on with marvelous zeal. Though hated and opposed, they wore serene and
cheerful countenances. In a word, they had learned to control every
faculty and every passion, and to merge every human aspiration and
personal ambition into the one supreme purpose of conquering an opposing
faith and exalting the power of priestly authority. They hold up before
the subjects of the King of Heaven a wonderful example of loving and
untiring service, which should be emulated by every servant of Christ
who too often yields an indifferent obedience to Him whom he professes
to love and to serve.

Francis Parkman, in his brilliant narrative of "The Jesuits in North
America," presents the following interesting contrast between the
Puritan and the Jesuit: "To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's
throne; but no less was the earth His footstool; and each in its degree
and its kind had its demands on man. He held it a duty to labor and to
multiply; and, building on the Old Testament quite as much as on the
New, thought that a reward on earth as well as in heaven awaited those
who were faithful to the law. Doubtless, such a belief is widely open to
abuse, and it would be folly to pretend that it escaped abuse in New
England; but there was in it an element manly, healthful and
invigorating. On the other hand, those who shaped the character, and in
a great measure the destiny, of New France had always on their lips the
nothingness and the vanity of life. For them, time was nothing but a
preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue consisted in a
renunciation of all the cares, toils and interests of earth. That such a
doctrine has often been joined to an intense worldliness, all history
proclaims; but with this we have at present nothing to do. If all
mankind acted on it in good faith, the world would sink into
decrepitude. It is the monastic idea carried into the wide field of
active life, and is like the error of those who, in their zeal to
cultivate their higher nature, suffer the neglected body to dwindle and
pine, till body and mind alike lapse into feebleness and disease."

Notwithstanding the success of the Jesuits in stopping the progress of
the Reformation, it may be truthfully said that they have failed. The
principles of the Reformation dominate the world and are slowly
modifying the Roman church in America. "In truth," says Macaulay, "if
society continued to hold together, if life and property enjoyed any
security, it was because common sense and common humanity restrained men
from doing what the order of Jesus assured them they might with a safe
conscience do." Our hope for the future progress of society lies in the
guiding power of this same common sense and common humanity.

The restoration of the order by Pius VII., August 7th, 1814, while it
renewed the papal favor, did not allay the hostility of the civil
powers. Various states have expelled them since that time, and wherever
they labor, they are still the objects of open attack or ill-disguised
suspicion. Although the order still shows "some quivering in fingers and
toes," as Carlyle expresses it, the principles of the Reformation are
too widely believed, and its benefits too deeply appreciated, to
justify any hope or fear of the ultimate triumph of Jesuitism.

_Retrospect_

So the Christian monk has greatly changed since he first appeared in the
deserts of Nitria, in Egypt. He has come from his den in the mountains
to take his seat in parliaments, and find his home in palaces. He is no
longer filthy in appearance, but elegant in dress and courtly in manner.
He has exchanged his rags for jewels and silks. He is no longer the
recluse of the lonely cliffs, chatting with the animals and gazing at
the stars. He is a man of the world, with schemes of conquest filling
his brain and a love of dominion ruling his heart. He is no longer a
ditch-digger and a ploughman, but the proud master of councils or the
cultured professor of the university. He still swears to the three vows
of celibacy, poverty and obedience, but they do not mean the same thing
to him that they did to the more ignorant, less cultured, but more
genuinely frank monk of the desert. Yes, he has all but completely lost
sight of his ancient monastic ideal. He professes the poverty of
Christ, but he cannot follow even so simple a man as his Saint Francis.

It is a long way from Jerome to Ignatius, but the end of the journey is
nigh. Loyola is the last type of monastic life, or changing the figure,
the last great leader in the conquered monastic army. The good within
the system will survive, its truest exponents will still fire the
courage and win the sympathy of the devout, but best of all, man will
recover from its poison.

VII

_THE FALL OF THE MONASTERIES_

The rise of Protestantism accelerated the decline and final ruin of the
monasteries. The enthusiasm of the Mendicants and the culture of the
Jesuits failed to convince the governments of Europe that monasticism
was worthy to survive the destruction awaiting so many medieval
institutions. The spread of reformatory opinions resulted in a
determined and largely successful attack upon the monasteries, which
were rightly believed to constitute the bulwark of papal power. So
imperative were the popular demands for a change, that popes and
councils hastened to urge the members of religious orders to abolish
existing abuses by enforcing primitive rules. But while Rome practically
failed in her attempted reformations, the Protestant reformers in church
and state were widely successful in either curtailing the privileges
and revenues of the monks or in annihilating the monasteries.

Since the sixteenth century the leading governments of Europe, even
including those in Catholic countries, have given tangible expression to
popular and political antagonism to monasticism, by the abolition of
convents, or the withdrawal of immunities and favors, for a long time a
source of monastic revenue and power. The results of this hostility have
been so disastrous, that monasticism has never regained its former
prestige and influence. Several of the older orders have risen from the
ruins, and a few new communities have appeared, some of which are
distinguished by their most laudable ministrations to the poor and the
sick, or by their educational services. Yet notwithstanding the
modifications of the system to suit the exigencies of modern times, it
seems altogether improbable that the monks will ever again wield the
power they possessed before the Reformation,

In the present chapter attention will be confined to the dissolution of
the monasteries under Henry VIII., in England. The suppression in that
country was occasioned partly by peculiar, local conditions, and was
more radical and permanent than the reforms in other lands, yet it is
entirely consistent with our general purpose to restrict this narrative
to English history. Penetrating beneath the varying externalities
attending the ruin of the monasteries in Germany, Spain, France,
Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, it will be found that the
underlying cause of the destruction of the monasteries was that the
monastic ideal conflicted with the spirit of the modern era. A
conspicuous and dramatic example of this struggle between medievalism,
as embodied in the monastic institution, and modern political, social
and religious ideals, is to be found in the dissolution of the English
monasteries. The narrative of the suppression in England also conveys
some idea of the struggle that was carried on throughout Europe, with
varying intensity and results.

There is no more striking illustration of the power of the personal
equation in the interpretation of history than that afforded by the
conflicting opinions respecting the overthrow of monasticism in England.
Those who mourn the loss of the monasteries cannot find words strong
enough with which to condemn Henry VIII., whom they regard as
"unquestionably the most unconstitutional, the most vicious king that
ever wore the English crown." Forgetting the inevitable cost of human
freedom, and lightly passing over the iniquities of the monastic system,
they fondly dwell upon the departed glory of the ancient abbeys. They
recall with sadness the days when the monks chanted their songs of
praise in the chapels, or reverently bent over their books of parchment,
bound in purple and gold, not that they might "winnow the treasures of
knowledge, but that they might elicit love, compunction and devotion."
The charming simplicity and loving service of the cloister life, in the
days of its unbroken vows, appeal to such defenders of the monks with
singular potency.

Truly, the fair-minded should attempt to appreciate the sorrow, the
indignation and the love of these friends of a ruined institution.
Passionless logic will never enable one to do justice to the sentiments
of those who cannot restrain their tears as they stand uncovered before
the majestic remains of a Melrose Abbey, or properly to estimate the
motives and methods of those who laid the mighty monastic institution
in the dust.

_The Character of Henry VIII_

Before considering the actual work of suppression, it may be interesting
to glance at the royal destroyer and his times. The character of Henry
VIII. is utterly inexplicable to many persons, chiefly because they do
not reflect that even the inconsistencies of a great man may be
understood when seen in the light of his times. A masterly and
comprehensive summary of the virtues and vices of the Tudor monarch, who
has been described as "the king, the whole king, and nothing but the
king," may be found in "A History of Crime in England," by Luke Owen
Pike. The distinguished author shows that in his brutality, his love of
letters, his opposition to Luther, his vacillation in religious
opinions, King Henry reflects with remarkable fidelity the age in which
he lived, both in its contrasts and its inconsistencies. "It is only the
previous history of England which can explain all the contradictions
exhibited in his conduct,--which can explain how he could be rapacious
yet sometimes generous, the Defender of the Faith yet under sentence of
excommunication, a burner of heretics yet a heretic himself, the pope's
advocate yet the pope's greatest enemy, a bloodthirsty tyrant yet the
best friend to liberty of thought in religion, an enthusiast yet a
turncoat, a libertine and yet all but a Puritan. He was sensual because
his forefathers had been sensual from time immemorial, rough in speech
and action because there had been but few men in Britain who had been
otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island. He was superstitious
and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual
courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint
and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew
the meaning." Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and
versatile. In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous
claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and
notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged
against him, he was, on the whole, a popular king. Few monarchs have
ever had to bear such a strain as was placed upon his abilities and
character. Rare have been the periods that have witnessed such
confusion of principles, social, political and religious. Those were the
days when liberty was at work, "but in a hundred fantastical and
repulsive shapes, confused and convulsive, multiform, deformed." Blind
violence and half-way reforms characterized the age because the
principles that were to govern modern times were not yet formulated.

Judged apart from his times Henry appears as an arrogant, cruel and
fickle ruler, whose virtues fail to atone for his vices. But still, with
all his faults, he compares favorably with preceding monarchs and even
with his contemporaries. If he had possessed less intelligence, courage
and ambition, he would not now be so conspicuous for his vices, but the
history of human liberty and free institutions, especially in England,
would have been vastly different. His praiseworthy traits were not
sufficiently strong to enable him to control his inherited passions, but
they were too regnant to permit him to submit without a struggle to the
hierarchy which had dominated his country so many centuries. Such was

"the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome."

_Events Preceding the Suppression_

Many causes and incidents contributed to the progress of the reformation
in England, and to the demolition of the monasteries. Only a few of them
can be given here, and they must be stated with a brevity that conveys
no adequate conception of their profound significance.

Henry VIII. ascended the throne, in the year 1509, when eighteen years
of age. In 1517, Luther took his stand against Rome. Four years later
Henry wrote a treatise in defence of the Seven Sacraments and in
opposition to the German reformer. For this princely service to the
church the king received the title "Defender of the Faith" from Pope
Leo X.

About 1527 it became known that Henry was questioning the validity of
his marriage with Catharine of Aragon, whom he had married when he was
twelve years old. She was the widow of his brother Arthur. The king
professed conscientious scruples about his marriage, but undoubtedly his
desire for male offspring, and later, his passion for Anne Boleyn,
prompted him to seek release from his queen. In 1529, Henry and
Catharine stood before a papal tribunal, presided over by Cardinal
Wolsey, the king's prime minister, and Cardinal Campeggio, from Rome,
for the purpose of determining the validity of the royal marriage. The
trial was a farce. The enraged king laid the blame upon Wolsey, and
retired him from office. The great cardinal was afterwards charged with
treason, but died broken-hearted, on his way to the Tower, November
29, 1530.

The breach between Henry and Rome, complicated by numerous international
intrigues, widened rapidly. Henry began to assume an attitude of bold
defiance toward the pope, which aroused the animosity of the Catholic
princes of Europe.

Notwithstanding the desire of a large body of the English people to
remain faithful to Rome, the dangers which menaced their country from
abroad and the ecclesiastical abuses at home, which had been a fruitful
cause for complaint for many years, tended to lessen the ancient horror
of heresy and schism, and inclined them to support their king. Another
factor that assisted in preparing the English people for the
destruction of the monasteries was Lollardism. As an organized sect, the
Lollards had ceased to exist, but the spirit and the doctrines of Wyclif
did not die. A real and a vital connection existed between the Lollards
of the fourteenth, and the reformers of the sixteenth, centuries. In
Henry's time, many Englishmen held practically the same views of Rome
and of the monks that had been taught by Wyclif[I].

[Footnote I: Appendix, Note I.]

A considerable number of Henry's subjects, however, while ostensibly
loyal to him, were inwardly full of hot rebellion. The king was
surrounded with perils. The princes of the Continent were eagerly
awaiting the bull for his excommunication. Henry's throne and his
kingdom might at any moment be given over by the pope to invasion by the
continental sovereigns.

Reginald Pole, afterwards cardinal, a cousin of the king, and a strong
Catholic, stood ready to betray the interests of his country to Rome.
Writing to the king, he said: "Man is against you; God is against you;
the universe is against you; what can you look for but destruction?"
"Dream not, Caesar," he encouragingly declared to Emperor Charles V.,
"that all generous hearts are quenched in England; that faith and piety
are dead. In you is their trust, in your noble nature, and in your zeal
for God--they hold their land till you shall come." Thus, on the
testimony of a Roman Catholic, there were traitors in England waiting
only for the call of Charles V., "To arms!" Pole was in full sympathy
with all the factions opposed to the king, and stood ready to aid them
in their resistance. He publicly denounced the king in several
continental countries.

The monks were especially enraged against Henry. They did all they could
to inflame the people by preaching against him and the reformers. Friar
Peyto, preaching before the king, had the assurance to say to him: "Many
lying prophets have deceived you, but I, as a true Micah, warn you that
the dogs will lick your blood as they did Ahab's." While the courage of
this friar is unquestioned, his defiant attitude illustrates the
position occupied by the monks toward those who favored separation from
Rome. The whole country was at white heat. The friends of Rome looked
upon Henry as an incarnate fiend, a servant of the devil and an enemy
of all religion. Many of them opposed him with the purest and best
motives, believing that the king was really undermining the church of
God and throwing society into chaos.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21