A Short History of Monks and Monasteries written by Alfred Wesley Wishart
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Alfred Wesley Wishart >> A Short History of Monks and Monasteries
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Of some things we may be certain. Any religious institution or ideal of
life that has survived the changes of twelve centuries, and that has
enlisted the enthusiastic services and warmest sympathies of numerous
men and women who have been honorably distinguished for their
intellectual attainments and moral character, must have possessed
elements of truth and moral worth. A contemptuous treatment of
monasticism implies either an ignorance of its real history or a wilful
disregard of the deep significance of its commendable features.
It is also certain that while the methods of monasticism, judged by
their effects upon the individual and upon society, may be justly
censured, it is beyond question that many monks, groping their way
toward the light in an age of ignorance and superstition, were inspired
by the purest motives. "Conscience," observes Waddington, "however
misguided, cannot be despised by a reflecting mind. When it leads one to
self-sacrifice and moral fortitude we cannot but admire his spirit,
while we condemn his sagacity and method."
_The Effects of Self-Sacrifice Upon the Individual_
Christianity requires some sort of self-denial as the condition of true
Christian discipleship. Self-love is to yield to a love of others. In
some sense, the Christian is to become dead to the world and its
demoralizing pleasures. But this primal demand upon the soul needs to be
interpreted. What is it to love the world? What is it to keep the body
in subjection? What are harmful indulgences? To give wrong answers to
these questions is to set up a false ideal; the more strenuously such
false ideal is followed, the more disastrous are the consequences. One's
struggle for moral purity may end in failure, and one's efficiency for
good may be seriously impaired by a perversion of the principle of
self-abnegation. Unnatural severity and excessive abstinence often
produce the opposite effect from that intended. Instead of a peaceful
mind there is delirium, and instead of freedom from temptation there are
a thousand horrible fiends hovering in the air and ready, at any moment,
to pounce upon their prey. "The history of ascetics," says Martensen,
"teaches us that by such overdone fasting the fancy is often excited to
an amazing degree, and in its airy domain affords the very things that
one thought to have buried, by means of mortification, a magical
resurrection." In attempting to subdue the body, many necessary
requirements of the physical organism were totally ignored. The body
rebelled against such unnatural treatment, and the mind, so closely
related to it, in its distraction, gave birth to the wildest fancies.
Men, who would have possessed an ordinarily pure mind in some useful
occupation of life, became the prey of the most lewd and obnoxious
imaginations. Then they fancied themselves vile above their fellows, and
laid on more stripes, put more thorns upon their pillows, and fasted
more hours, only to find that instead of fleeing, the devils became
blacker and more numerous.
Self-forgetfulness is the key to happiness. The monk thought otherwise,
and slew himself in his vain attempt to fight against nature. He never
lifted his eyes from his own soul. He was always feeling his spiritual
pulse, staring at his lean spiritual visage, and tearfully watching his
growth in grace. An interest in others and a strong mind in a strong
body are the best antidotes to religious despair and the temptations of
the soul. Life in the monastery was generally less severe than in the
desert's solitude. There was more and better food, shelter, and comfort,
but there were many unnecessary and unnatural restrictions, even in the
best days of monasticism. There were too many hours of prayer, too many
needless regulations for silence, fasting and penance, to produce a
healthy, vigorous type of religious life.
_The Effects of Solitude Upon the Individual_.
It has already been shown that some solitude is essential to our richest
culture. Our higher nature demands time for reflection and meditation.
But the monks carried this principle to an extreme, and they
overestimated its benefits. "Ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and
inordinate desires," says Montaigne, "do not leave us because we forsake
our native country, they often follow us even to cloisters and
philosophical schools; nor deserts, nor caves, nor hair shirts, nor
fasts, can disengage us from them."
Besides these passions, which the monks carried with them, their
solitary life tended to foster spiritual pride, contract sympathy, and
engender an inhumane spirit. True, there were exceptions; but the
sublime characters which survive in monastic history are by no means
typical of its usual effects. Seclusion did not benefit the average
monk. Indeed there is something wanting in even the loftiest monastic
characters. "The heroes of monasticism," says Allen, "are not the heroes
of modern life. All put together, they would not furnish out one such
soul as William of Orange, or Gustavus, or Milton. Independence of
thought and liberty of conscience, they renounced once for all, in
taking upon them the monastic vow. All the larger enterprises, all the
broad humanities, which to our mind make a greater career, were rigidly
shut off by a barrier that could not be crossed. All the warmth and
wealth of social and domestic life was a field of forbidden fruit, to be
entered only through the gate of unpardonable sin."
Thus self-excluded from a normal life in society, often the subject of
self-inflicted pain, it is no wonder that the monk impaired all the
nobler and manlier feelings of the soul, that he became strangely
indifferent to human affection, that bigotry and pride often sat as
joint rulers on the throne of his heart. He who had trampled on all
filial relations would scarcely recognize the bonds of human
brotherhood. He who heard not the prayer of his own mother would not be
likely to listen to the cry of the tortured heretic for mercy. Man as
man was not reverenced. It was the monk in man who was esteemed. As
Milman puts it, "Bigotry has always found its readiest and sternest
executioners among those who have never known the charities of life."
Nor is it a matter of surprise that the monk was spiritually proud. He
was supposed to stand in the inner circle, a little nearer the throne of
God than his fellow-mortals. When dead, he was worshiped as a saint and
regarded as an intercessor between God and his lower fellow-creatures.
His hatred of the base world easily passed over into a sense of
superiority and ignoble pride.
"True social life," says Martensen, "leads to solitude." This truth the
monks emphasized to the exclusion of the converse, "true life in
solitude leads back to society." John Tauler, the mystic monk, realized
this truth when he said: "If God calls me to a sick person, or to the
service of preaching, or to any other service of love, I must follow,
although I am in the state of highest contemplation." The hermits of the
desert, and too often the monks of the cloister, escaped from all such
services, and selfishly gave themselves up to saving their own souls by
contemplation and prayer. Ministration to the needy is the external side
of the inner religious life. It is the fruit of faith and prayer. The
monk sought solitude, not for the purpose of fitting himself for a place
in society, but for selfish, personal ends. Saint Bruno, in a letter to
his friend Ralph le Verd, eulogizes the solitude of the monastic cell,
and among other sentiments he gives expression to the following: "I am
speaking here of the contemplative life; and although its sons are less
numerous than those of active life, yet, like Joseph and Benjamin, they
are infinitely dearer to their Father.... O my brother, fear not then to
fly from the turmoil and the misery of the world; leave the storms that
rage without, to shelter yourself in this safe haven."
Thus sinful and sorrowing humanity, needing the guidance and comfort
that holy men can furnish, was forgotten in the desire for personal
peace and future salvation.
Another baneful result of isolation was the strangulation of filial
love. When the monk abandoned the softening, refining influence of women
and children, one side of his nature suffered a serious contraction. An
Egyptian mother stood at the hut of two hermits, her sons. Weeping
bitterly, she begged to see their faces. To her piteous entreaties, they
said: "Why do you, who are already stricken with age, pour forth such
cries and lamentations?" "It is because I long to see you," she replied.
"Am I not your mother? I am now an old and wrinkled woman, and my heart
is troubled at the sound of your voices." But even a mother's love could
not cope with their fearful fanaticism., and she went away with their
cold promise that they would meet in heaven. St. John of Calama visited
his sister in disguise, and a chronicler, telling the story afterwards,
said, "By the mercy of Jesus Christ he had not been recognized, and they
never met again." Many hermits received their parents or brothers and
sisters with their eyes shut. When the father of Simeon Stylites died,
his widowed mother prayed for entrance into her son's cell. For three
days and nights she stood without, and then the blessed Simeon prayed
the Lord for her, and she immediately gave up the ghost.
These as well as numerous other stories of a similar character that
might be quoted illustrate the hardening influence of solitude. Instead
of cherishing a love of kindred, as a gift of heaven and a spring of
virtue, the monk spurned it and trampled it beneath his feet as an
obstacle to his spiritual progress. "The monks," says Milman, "seem
almost unconscious of the softening, humanizing effect of the natural
affections, the beauty of parental tenderness and filial love."
_The Monks as Missionaries_
The conversion of the barbarians was an indispensable condition of
modern civilization. Every step forward had to be taken in the face of
barbaric ignorance and cruelty. In this stupendous undertaking the monks
led the way, displaying in their labors remarkable generalship and
undaunted courage. Whatever may be thought of later monasticism, the
Benedictine monks are entitled to the lasting gratitude of mankind for
their splendid services in reducing barbaric Europe to some sort of
order and civilization. But again the mixture of good and evil is
strangely illustrated. It seems impossible to accord the monks
unqualified praise. The potency of the evil tendencies within their
system vitiated every noble achievement. Their methods and practical
ideals were so at variance with the true order of nature that every
commendable victory involved a corresponding obstacle to real social and
religious progress. The justice of these observations will be more
apparent as this inquiry proceeds.
_Monasticism and Civic Duties_
The withdrawal of a considerable number of men of character and talent
from the exercise of civic duties is injurious to the state. The burdens
upon those who remain become heavier, while society is deprived of the
moral influence of those who forsake their civic responsibilities. When
the monk, from the outside as it were, attempted to exert an influence
for good, he largely failed. His ideals of life were not formulated in a
real world, but in an artificial, antisocial environment. He was unable
to appreciate the political needs of men. He could not enter
sympathetically into their serious employments or innocent delights.
Controlled by superstition, and exalting a servile obedience to human
authority, he became a very unsafe guide in political affairs. He could
not consistently labor for secular progress, because he had forsaken a
world in which secular interests were prominent.
It may be true that in the early days of monasticism the monks pursued
the proper course in refusing to become Roman patriots. No human power
could have averted the ruin which overtook that corrupt world. Perhaps
their non-combatant attitude gave them more influence with the
conquerors of Rome, who were to become the founders of modern nations.
In later years, the abbots of the principal monasteries occupied seats
in the legislative assemblies of Germany, Hungary, Spain, England,
Italy, and France. In many instances they stood between the violence of
the nobles and the unprotected vassal. Political monks, inspired by a
natural breadth of vision and a love of humanity, secured the passage of
wise and humane regulations. Palgrave says: "The mitre has resisted many
blows which would have broken the helmet, and the crosier has kept more
foes in awe than the lance. It is, then, to these prelates that we
chiefly owe the maintenance of the form and spirit of free government,
secured to us, not by force, but by law; and the altar has thus been the
corner-stone of our ancient constitution."
Although there is much truth in the foregoing observation, yet on the
other hand, when the influence of the monastic ideal upon civilization
is studied in its deeper aspects, it cannot be justly maintained that
the final effects of monasticism minister to the development of a normal
civilization. Industrial, mental and moral progress depend upon a
certain breadth of mind and energy of soul. Asceticism saps the vitality
of human nature and confines the activity of the mind within artificial
limits. "Hence the dreary, sterile torpor," says Lecky, "that
characterized those ages in which the ascetic principle has been
supreme, while the civilizations which have attained the highest
perfection have been those of ancient Greece and modern Europe, which
were most opposed to it."
The monks did not hesitate to become embroiled in military quarrels, or
to incite the fiercer passions of men when it suited their purpose.
Their opposition to kings and princes was often not based on a love of
popular freedom, but on an indisposition to share power with secular
rulers. The legislative enactments against heretics, many of which they
inspired, clearly show that they neither desired nor tolerated liberty
of speech or conduct. They were the Almighty's vicars on earth, before
whom it was the duty of king and subject to bow down. Vaughan writes of
the period just prior to the Reformation: "The great want was freedom
from ecclesiastical domination; and from the feeling of the hour,
scarcely any price would be deemed too great to be paid for that
object." The history of modern Jesuitism, against which the legislation
of almost every civilized nation has been directed, affords abundant
testimony to the inherent hostility of the monastic system, even in its
modified modern form, to every species of government which in any way
guarantees freedom of thought to its people. This stern fact confronts
the student, however much he may be inclined to yield homage to the
early monks. It must be held in mind when one reads this pleasing
sentence from Macaulay: "Surely a system which, however deformed by
superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities
previously governed only by vigor of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a
system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like
his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to deserve a
more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists."
The general effect of monasticism on the state is, therefore, not to be
determined by fixing the gaze on any one century of its history, or by
holding up some humane and patriotic monk as a representative product of
the system.
_The Agricultural Services of the Monks_
Europe must ever be indebted to Benedict and his immediate followers for
their services in reclaiming waste lands, and in removing the stigma
which a corrupt civilization had placed upon labor. Benedict came before
the world saying: "No person is ever more usefully employed than when
working with his hands or following the plough, providing food for the
use of man." Care was taken that councils should not be called when
ploughing was to be done or wheat to be threshed. Benedict bent himself
to the task of teaching the rich and the proud, the poor and the lazy
the alphabet of prosperity and happiness. Agriculture was at its lowest
ebb. Marshes covered once fertile fields, and the men who should have
tilled the land spurned the plough as degrading, or were too indolent to
undertake the tasks of the farm. The monks left their cells and their
prayers to dig ditches and plough fields. The effect was magical. Men
once more turned back to a noble but despised industry. Peace and plenty
supplanted war and poverty. "The Benedictines," says Guizot, "have been
the great clearers of land in Europe. A colony, a little swarm of monks,
settled in places nearly uncultivated, often in the midst of a pagan
population--in Germany, for example, or in Brittany; there, at once
missionaries and laborers, they accomplish their double service, through
peril and fatigue."
It is to be regretted that history throws a shadow across this pleasing
scene. When labor came to be recognized as honorable and useful, along
came the begging friars, creating, both by precept and example, a
prejudice against labor and wealth. Rags and laziness came to be
associated with holiness, and a beggar monk was held up as an ideal and
sacred personage. "The spirit that makes men devote themselves in vast
numbers," says Lecky, "to a monotonous life of asceticism and poverty is
so essentially opposed to the spirit that creates the energy and
enthusiasm of industry, that their continued coexistence may be regarded
as impossible." But such a fatal mistake could not long captivate the
mind, or cause men to forget Benedict and his industrial ideal. The
blessings of wealth rightly administered, and the dignity of labor
without which wealth is impossible, came to be recognized as necessary
factors in the true progress of man.
_The Monks and Secular Learning_
For many centuries, as has been previously shown, the monks were the
schoolmasters of Europe. They also preserved the manuscripts of the
classics, produced numerous theological works, transmitted many pious
traditions, and wrote some interesting and some worthless chronicles.
They laid the foundations of several great universities, including those
of Paris, Oxford and Cambridge. For these, and other valuable services,
the monks merit the praise of posterity. It is, however, too much to
affirm, as Montalembert does, that "without the monks, we should have
been as ignorant of our history as children." It is altogether
improbable that the human mind would have been unproductive in the field
of historical writing had monasticism not existed during the middle
ages. While, also, the monks should be thanked for preserving the
classics, it should not be supposed that all knowledge of Latin and
Greek literature would have perished but for them.
It is surprising that the literary men of the medieval period should
have written so little of interest to the modern mind, or that helps us
to an understanding of the momentous events amid which they lived.
Unfortunately the monkish mind was concentrated upon a theology, the
premises of which have been largely set aside by modern science. Their
writings are so permeated by grotesque superstitions that they are
practically worthless to-day. Their hostility to secular affairs blinded
them to the tremendous significance of the mighty political and social
movements of the age.
It is undeniable that the monks never encouraged a love of secular
learning. They did not try to impart a love of the classics which they
preserved. The spirit of monasticism was ever at war with true
intellectual progress. The monks imprisoned Roger Bacon fourteen years,
and tried to blast his fair name by calling him a magician, merely
because he stepped beyond the narrow limits of monkish inquiry. Many
suffered indignities, privations or death for questioning tradition or
for conducting scientific researches.
So while it is true that the monks rendered many services to the cause
of education, it is also true that their monastic theories tended to
narrow the scope of intellectual activity. "This," says Guizot, "is the
foundation of their instruction; all was turned into commentary of the
Scriptures, historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral commentary.
They desired only to form priests; all studies, whatsoever their nature,
were directed to this result." There was no disinterested love of
learning; no desire to become acquainted with God's world. In fact, the
old hostility to everything natural characterizes all monastic history.
Europe did not enter upon that broad and noble intellectual development
which is the glory of our era, until the right arm of monasticism was
struck down, the dread of heresy banished from the human mind, and
secular learning welcomed as a legitimate and elevated field for
mental activity.
Hamilton W. Mabie, in his delightful essay on "Some Old Scholars,"
describes this step from the gloom of the cloister to the light of God's
world: "Petrarch really escaped from a sepulcher when he stepped out of
the cloister of medievalism, with its crucifix, its pictures of
unhealthy saints, its cords of self-flagellation, and found the heavens
clear, beautiful, and well worth living under, and the world full of
good things which one might desire and yet not be given over to evil. He
ventured to look at life for himself and found it full of wonderful
dignity and power. He opened his Virgil, brushed aside the cobwebs which
monkish brains had spun over the beautiful lines, and met the old poet
as one man meets another; and lo! there arose before him a new,
untrodden and wholly human world, free from priestcraft and pedantry,
near to nature and unspeakably alluring and satisfying."
The Dominicans and Jesuits set their faces like flint against all
education tending to liberalize the mind. Here is a passage from a
document published by the Jesuits at their first centenary: "It is
undeniable that we have undertaken a great and uninterrupted war in the
interests of the Catholic church against heresy. Heresy need never hope
that the society will make terms with it, or remain quiescent ... No
peace need be expected, for the seed of hatred is born within us. What
Hamilcar was to Hannibal, Ignatius is to us. At his instigation, we have
sworn upon the altars eternal war." When this proclamation is read in
the light of history, its meaning stands forth with startling clearness.
Almost every truth in science and philosophy, no matter how valuable it
was destined to become as an agent in enhancing the well-being of the
race, has had to wear the stigma of heresy.
It is an interesting speculation to imagine what the intellectual
development of Europe would have been, had secular learning been
commended by the monks, and the common people encouraged to exercise
their minds without fear of excommunication or death. It is sad to
reflect how many great thoughts must have perished still-born in the
student's cloister cell, and to picture the silent grief with which
many a brilliant soul must have repressed his eager imagination.
_The Charity of the Monks_
In the eleventh century, a monk named Thieffroy wrote the following: "It
matters little that our churches rise to heaven, that the capitals of
their pillars are sculptured and gilded, that our parchment is tinted
purple, that gold is melted to form the letters of our manuscripts, and
that their bindings are set with precious stones, if we have little or
no care for the members of Christ, and if Christ himself lies naked and
dying before our doors." This spirit, so charmingly expressed, was never
quite absent from the monkish orders. The monasteries were asylums for
the hungry during famines, and the sick during plagues. They served as
hotels where the traveler found a cordial welcome, comfortable shelter
and plain food. If he needed medical aid, his wants were supplied.
During the black plague, while many monks fled with the multitude,
others stayed at their posts and were to be found daily in the homes of
the stricken, ministering to their bodily and spiritual needs. Many of
them perished in their heroic and self-sacrificing labors.
Alms-giving was universally enjoined as a sure passport to heaven. The
most glittering rewards were held out to those who enriched the monks
with legacies to be used in relief of the poor. It was, no doubt, the
unselfish activities of the monks that caused them to be held in such
high esteem; the result was their coffers were filled with more gold
than they could easily give away. Thus abuses grew up. Bernard said:
"Piety gave birth to wealth, and the daughter devoured the mother."
Jacob of Vitry complained that money, "by various and deceptive tricks,"
was exacted from the people by the monks, most of which adhered "to
their unfaithful fingers." While Lecky eloquently praises the monks for
their beautiful deeds of charity, "following all the windings of the
poor man's grief," still he condones in the strongest terms the action
of Henry VIII. in transferring the monastic funds to his own treasury:
"No misapplication of this property by private persons could produce as
much evil as an unrestrained monasticism."
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