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

Benedict survived the founding of this monastery fourteen years. His
time was occupied in establishing other cloisters, perfecting his rule,
and preaching. Many stories are related of his power over the hearts of
the untamed barbarians. Galea the Goth, out on a marauding expedition,
demanded a peasant to give him his treasures. The peasant, thinking to
escape, said he had committed them to the keeping of Benedict. Galea
immediately ordered him to be bound on a horse and conducted to the
saint. Benedict was seated at the gateway reading when Galea and his
prisoner arrived. Looking up from his book he fastened his eyes upon the
poor peasant, who was immediately loosed from his bonds. The astonished
Galea, awed by this miracle, fell at the feet of the abbot, and, instead
of demanding gold, supplicated his blessing. Once a boy was drowning,
and, at the command of Benedict, St. Maur, a wealthy young Roman, who
had turned monk, walked safely out upon the water and rescued the lad.
Gregory also tells us many stories of miraculous healing, and of one
resurrection from the dead.

Benedict's last days were linked with a touching incident. His sister,
Scholastica, presided over a convent near his own. They met once a year.
On his last visit to her, Scholastica begged him to remain and "speak of
the joys of Heaven till the morning." But Benedict would not listen; he
must return. His sister then buried her face in her hands weeping and
praying. Suddenly the sky was overcast with clouds, and a terrific storm
burst upon the mountains, which prevented her brother's return. Three
days later Benedict saw the soul of his sister entering heaven. On March
21, 543, a short time after his sister's death, two monks beheld a
shining pathway of stars over which the soul of Benedict passed from
Monte Cassino to heaven. Such, in brief, is the story preserved for us
in his biography by the celebrated patron of monasticism, Pope
Gregory I.

_The Rules of Benedict_

The rules, _regulae_, of St. Benedict, are worthy of special
consideration, since they constitute the real foundation of his success
and of his fame. His order was by far the most important monastic
brotherhood until the thirteenth century. Nearly all the other orders
which sprang up during this interval were based upon Benedictine rules,
and were really attempts to reform the monastic system on the basis of
Benedict's original practice. Other monks lived austere lives and worked
miracles, and some of them formulated rules, but it is to Benedict and
his rules that we must look for the code of Western monachism. "By a
strange parallelism," says Putnam, "almost in the very year in which the
great Emperor Justinian was codifying the results of seven centuries of
Roman secular legislation for the benefit of the judges and the
statesmen of the new Europe, Benedict, on his lonely mountain-top, was
composing his code for the regulation of the daily life of the great
civilizers of Europe for seven centuries to come."

The rules consist of a preface and seventy-three chapters. The prologue
defines the classes of monks, and explains the aim of the "school of
divine servitude," as Benedict described his monastery. The following is
a partial list of the subjects considered: The character of an abbot,
silence, maxims for good works, humility, directions as to divine
service, rules for dormitories, penalties, duties of various monastic
officers, poverty, care of the sick daily rations of food and drink,
hours for meals, fasting, entertainment of guests, and dress. They close
with the statement that the Benedictine rule is not offered as an ideal
of perfection, or even as equal to the teaching of Cassian or Basil, but
for mere beginners in the spiritual life, who may thence
proceed further.

The Benedictine novitiate extended over one year, but was subsequently
increased to three. At the close of this period the novice was given the
opportunity to go back into the world. If he still persisted in his
choice, he swore before the bones of the saints to remain forever cut
off from the rest of his fellow beings. If a monk left the monastery, or
was expelled, he could return twice, but if, after the third admission,
he severed his connection, the door was shut forever.

The monk passed his time in manual labor, copying manuscripts, reading,
fasting and prayer. He was forbidden to receive letters, tokens or
gifts, even from his nearest-relatives, without permission from the
abbot. His daily food allowance was usually a pound of bread, a pint of
wine, cider or ale, and sometimes fish, eggs, fruit or cheese. He was
dressed in a black cowl. His clothing was to be suitable to the climate
and to consist of two sets. He was also furnished with a straw mattress,
blanket, quilt, pillow, knife, pen, needle, handkerchief and tablets. He
was, in all things, to submit patiently to his superior, to keep
silence, and to serve his turn in the kitchen. In the older days the
monks changed their clothes on the occasion of a bath, which used to be
taken four times a year. Later, bathing was allowed only twice a year,
and the monks changed their clothes when they wished.

Various punishments were employed to correct faults. Sometimes the
offender was whipped on the bare shoulders with a thick rod; others had
to lie prostrate in the doorway of the church at each hour, so that the
monks passed over his body on entering or going out.

The monks formerly rose at two o'clock, and spent the day in various
occupations until eight at night, when they retired. The following rules
once governed St. Gregory's Monastery in England: "3:45 A.M. Rise. 4
A.M. Matins and lauds, recited; half-hour mental prayer; prime _sung_;
prime B.V.M. recited. 6:30 A.M. Private study; masses; breakfast for
those who had permission. 8 A.M. Lectures and disputations. 10 A.M.
Little hours B.V.M., recited; tierce, mass, sext, _sung_. 11:30 A.M.
Dinner. 12 noon. None _sung_; vespers and compline B.V.M., recited.
12:30 P.M. Siesta, 1 P.M. Hebrew or Greek lecture. 2 P.M. Vespers
_sung_. 2:30 P.M. Lectures and disputations. 4 P.M. Private study. 6
P.M. Supper. 6:30 P.M. Recreation. 7:30 P.M. Public spiritual reading;
compline _sung_; matins and lauds B.V.M., recited; half-hour mental
prayer. 8:45 P.M. Retire[D]."

[Footnote D: Appendix, Note D.]

Such a routine suggests a dreary life, but that would depend upon the
monk's temperament. Regularity of employment kept him healthy, and if he
did not take his sins too much to heart, he was free from gloom. Hill
very justly observes: "Whenever men obey that injunction of labor, no
matter what their station, there is in the act the element of happiness,
and whoever avoids that injunction, there is always the shadow of the
unfulfilled curse darkening their path." Thus, their ideal was "to
subdue one's self and then to devote one's self," which De Tocqueville
pronounces "the secret of strength." How well they succeeded in
realizing their ideal by the methods employed we shall see later.

The term "order," as applied to the Benedictines, is used in a different
sense from that which it has when used of later monastic bodies. Each
Benedictine house was practically independent of every other, while the
houses of the Dominicans, Franciscans or Jesuits were bound together
under one head. The family idea was peculiar to the Benedictines. The
abbot was the father, and the monastery was the home where the
Benedictine was content to dwell all his life. In the later monastic
societies the monks were constantly traveling from place to place.
Taunton says: "As God made society to rest on the basis of the family,
so St. Benedict saw that the spiritual family is the surest basis for
the sanctification of the souls of his monks. The monastery therefore is
to him what the 'home' is to lay-folk.... From this family idea comes
another result: the very fact that St. Benedict did not found an Order
but only gave a Rule, cuts away all possibility of that narrowing
_esprit de corps_ which comes so easily to a widespread and
highly-organized body."

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, it became necessary
for the general good of each family to secure some kind of union. The
Chapter then came into existence, which was a representative body,
composed of the heads of the different houses and ordinary monks
regularly appointed as delegates. To the Chapter were committed various
matters of jurisdiction, and also the power of sending visitors to the
different abbeys in the pope's name.

Each society was ruled by an abbot, who governed in Christ's stead.
Sometimes the members of the monastery were consulted, the older ones
ordinarily, the whole congregation; in important matters. But implicit
obedience to the abbot, as the representative of God, was demanded
by the vows.

The abbot was to be elected by the monks. At various periods popes and
princes usurped this power, but the monks always claimed the right as an
original privilege. Carlyle quotes Jocelin on Abbot Samson, who says
that the monks of St. Edmundsbury were compelled to submit their choice
to Henry II., who, looking at the committee of monks somewhat sternly,
said: "You present to me Samson; I do not know him; had it been your
prior, whom I do know, I should have accepted him; however, I will now
do as you wish. But have a care of yourselves. By the true eyes of God,
if you manage badly, I will be upon you."

In Walter Scott's novel, "The Abbot," there is an interesting contrast
drawn between the ceremonies attending an abbot's installation, when the
monasteries were in their glory, and the pitiable scenes in the days of
their decline, when Mary Stuart was a prisoner in Lochleven. In the
monastery of Kennaquhair, which had been despoiled by the fury of the
times, a few monks were left to mourn the mutilated statues and weep
over the fragments of richly-carved Gothic pillars. Having secretly
elected an abbot, they assembled in fear and trembling to invest him
with the honors of his office. "In former times," says Scott, "this was
one of the most splendid of the many pageants which the hierarchy of
Rome had devised to attract the veneration of the faithful. When the
folding doors on such solemn occasions were thrown open, and the new
abbot appeared on the threshold in full-blown dignity, with ring and
mitre and dalmatique and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers and
juvenile dispensers of incense preceding him, and the venerable train of
monks behind him, his appearance was the signal for the magnificent
jubilate to rise from the organ and the music-loft and to be joined by
the corresponding bursts of 'Alleluiah' from the whole assembled
congregation.

"Now all was changed. Father Ambrose stood on the broken steps of the
high altar, barefooted, as was the rule, and holding in his hand his
pastoral staff, for the gemmed ring and jewelled mitre had become
secular spoils. No obedient vassals came, man after man, to make their
homage and to offer the tribute which should provide their spiritual
superior with palfrey and trappings. No bishop assisted at the solemnity
to receive into the higher ranks of the church nobility a dignitary
whose voice in the legislature was as potent as his own."

We are enabled by this partially-quoted description to imagine the
importance attached to the election of an abbot. He became, in feudal
times, a lord of the land, the richest man in the community, and a
tremendous power in political councils and parliaments. A Benedictine
abbot once confessed: "My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand
crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a
sovereign prince."

No new principle seems to be disclosed by the Benedictine rules. The
command to labor had been emphasized even in the monasteries of Egypt.
The Basilian code contained a provision enforcing manual labor, but the
work was light and insufficient to keep the mind from brooding. The
monastery that was to succeed in the West must provide for men who not
only could toil hard, but who must do so if they were to be kept pure
and true; it must welcome men accustomed to the dangerous adventures of
pioneer life in the vast forests of the North. The Benedictine system
met these conditions by a unique combination and application of
well-known monastic principles; by a judicious subordination of minor
matters to essential discipline; by bringing into greater prominence
the doctrine of labor; by tempering the austerities of the cell to meet
the necessities of a severe climate; and lastly, by devising a scheme of
life equally adaptable to the monk of sunny Italy and the rude Goth of
the northern forests.

It was the splendid fruition of many years of experiment amid varying
results. "It shows," says Schaff, "a true knowledge of human nature, the
practical wisdom of Rome and adaptation to Western customs; it combines
simplicity with completeness, strictness with gentleness, humility with
courage and gives the whole cloister life a fixed unity and compact
organization, which, like the episcopate, possessed an unlimited
versatility and power of expansion."

_The Struggle against Barbarism_

No institution has contributed as much to the amelioration of human
misery or struggled as patiently and persistently to influence society
for good as the Christian church. In spite of all that may be said
against the followers of the Cross, it still remains true, that they
have ever been foremost in the establishment of peace and justice
among men.

The problem that confronted the church when Benedict began his labors,
was no less than that of reducing a demoralized and brutal society to
law and order. Chaos reigned, selfishness and lust ruled the hearts of
Rome's conquerors. The West was desolated by barbarians; the East
dismembered and worn out by theological controversy. War had ruined the
commerce of the cities and laid waste the rural districts. Vast swamps
and tracts of brush covered fields once beautiful with the products of
agricultural labor. The minds of men were distracted by apprehensions of
some frightful, impending calamity. The cultured Roman, the untutored
Goth and the corrupted Christian were locked in the deadly embrace of
despair. "Constantly did society attempt to form itself," says Guizot,
"constantly was it destroyed by the act of man, by the absence of the
moral conditions under which alone it can exist."

But notwithstanding failures and discouragements, the work of
reconstructing society moved painfully on, and among the brave master
builders was Benedict of Nursia. "He found the world, physical and
social, in ruins," says Cardinal Newman, "and his mission was to restore
it in the way,--not of science, but of nature; not as if setting about
to do it; not professing to do it by any set time, or by any series of
strokes; but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work
was done, it was not known to be doing. It was a restoration rather than
a visitation, correction or conversion. The new world he helped to
create was a growth rather than a structure."

But the chaos created by the irruption of the barbarous nations at this
period seriously affected the moral character and influence of the
clergy and the monks. The church seemed unequal to the stupendous
undertaking of converting the barbarians. The monks, as a class, were
lawless and vicious. Benedict himself testifies against them, and
declares that they were "always wandering and never stable; that they
obey their own appetites, whereunto they are enslaved." Unable to
control their own desires by any law whatsoever, they were unfitted to
the task before them. It was imperative, then, that unity and order
should be introduced among the monasteries; that some sort of a uniform
rule, adapted to the existing conditions, should be adopted, not only
for the preservation of the monastic institution, but for the
preparation of the monks for their work. Therefore, although the
Christianity of that time was far from ideal, it was, nevertheless, a
religion within the grasp of the reckless barbarians; and subsequent
events prove that it possessed a moral power capable of humanizing
manners, elevating the intellect, and checking the violent temper of
the age.

Excepting always the religious services of the Benedictine monks, their
greatest contribution to civilization was literary and educational[E].
The rules of Benedict provided for two hours a day of reading, and it
was doubtless this wise regulation that stimulated literary tastes, and
resulted in the collecting of books and the reproduction of manuscripts.
"Wherever a Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of any one of the
Orders, which were but offshoots from the Benedictine tree, books were
multiplied and a library came into existence, small indeed at first, but
increasing year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered together
collections of books that would do credit to a modern university."
There was great danger that the remains of classic literature might be
destroyed in the general devastation of Italy. The monasteries rescued
the literary fragments that escaped, and preserved them. "For a period
of more than six centuries the safety of the literary heritage of
Europe,--one may say of the world,--depended upon the scribes of a few
dozen scattered monasteries."

[Footnote E: Appendix, Note E.]

The literary services of the earlier monks did not consist in original
production, but in the reproduction and preservation of the classics.
This work was first begun as a part of the prescribed routine of
European monastic life in the monastery at Vivaria, or Viviers, France,
which was founded by Cassiodorus about 539. The rules of this cloister
were based on those of Cassian, who died in the early part of the fifth
century. Benedict, at Monte Cassino, followed the example of
Cassiodorus, and the Benedictine Order carried the work on for the seven
succeeding centuries.

Cassiodorus was a statesman of no mean ability, and for over forty years
was active in the political circles of his time, holding high official
positions under five different Roman rulers. He was also an exceptional
scholar, devoting much of his energy to the preservation of classic
literature. His magnificent collection of manuscripts, rescued from the
ruins of Italian libraries, "supplied material for the pens of thousands
of monastic scribes." If we leave out Jerome, it is to Cassiodorus that
the honor is due for joining learning and monasticism.

"Thus," remarks Schaff, "that very mode of life, which, in its founder,
Anthony, despised all learning, became in the course of its development
an asylum of culture in the rough and stormy times of the migration and
the crusades, and a conservator of the literary treasures of antiquity
for the use of modern times."

Cassiodorus, with a noble enthusiasm, inspired his monks to their task.
He even provided lamps of ingenious construction, that seem to have been
self-trimming, to aid them in their work. He himself set an example of
literary diligence, astonishing in one of his age.

Putnam is justified in his praises of this remarkable character when he
declares: "It is not too much to say that the continuity of thought and
civilization of the ancient world with that of the middle ages was due,
more than to any other one man, to the life and labors of Cassiodorus."

But the monk was more than a scribe and a collector of books, he became
the chronicler and the school-teacher. "The records that have come down
to us of several centuries of medieval European history are due almost
exclusively to the labors of the monastic chroniclers." A vast fund of
information, the value of which is impaired, it is true, by much useless
stuff, concerning medieval customs, laws and events, was collected by
these unscientific historians and is now accessible to the student.

At the end of the ninth century nearly all the monasteries of Europe
conducted schools open to the children of the neighborhood. The
character of the educational training of the times is not to be judged
by modern standards. A beginning had to be made, and that too at a time
"when neither local nor national governments had assumed any
responsibilities in connection with elementary education, and when the
municipalities were too ignorant, and in many cases too poor, to make
provision for the education of the children." It is therefore to the
lasting credit of Benedict, inspired no doubt by the example of
Cassiodorus, that he commanded his monks to read, encouraged literary
work, and made provision for the education of the young.

The Benedictines rendered a great social service in reclaiming deserted
regions and in clearing forests. "The monasteries," says Maitland,
"were, in those days of misrule and turbulence, beyond all price, not
only as places where (it may be imperfectly, but better than elsewhere)
God was worshipped,... but as central points whence agriculture was to
spread over bleak hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal its
bread to millions perishing with hunger and its pestilential train."
Roman taxation and barbarian invasions had ruined the farmers, who left
their lands and fled to swell the numbers of the homeless. The monk
repeopled these abandoned but once fertile fields, and carried
civilization still deeper into the forests. Many a monastery with its
surrounding buildings became the nucleus of a modern city. The more
awful the darkness of the forest solitudes, the more the monks loved
it. They cut down trees in the heart of the wilderness, and transformed
a soil bristling with woods and thickets into rich pastures and ploughed
fields. They stimulated the peasantry to labor, and taught them many
useful lessons in agriculture. Thus, they became an industrial, as well
as a spiritual, agency for good.

The habits of the monks brought them into close contact with nature.
Even the animals became their friends. Numerous stories have been
related of their wonderful power over wild beasts and their
conversations with the birds. "It is wonderful," says Bede, "that he who
faithfully and loyally obeys the Creator of the universe, should, in his
turn, see all the creatures obedient to his orders and his wishes." They
lived, so we are told, in the most intimate relations with the animal
creation. Squirrels leaped to their hands or hid in the folds of their
cowls. Stags came out of the forests in Ireland and offered themselves
to some monks who were ploughing, to replace the oxen carried off by the
hunters. Wild animals stopped in their pursuit of game at the command of
St. Laumer. Birds ceased singing at the request of some monks until
they had chanted their evening prayer, and at their word the feathered
songsters resumed their music. A swan was the daily companion of St.
Hugh of Lincoln, and manifested its miraculous knowledge of his
approaching death by the most profound melancholy. While all the details
of such stories are not to be accepted as literally true, no doubt some
of this poetry of monastic history rests upon interesting and
charming facts.

A fuller discussion of the permanent contributions which the monk made
to civilization is reserved for the last chapter. I have somewhat
anticipated a closer scrutiny of his achievements in order to present a
clearer view of his life and labors. His religious duties were, perhaps,
wearisome enough. We might tire of his monotonous chanting and incessant
vigils, but it is gratifying to know that he also engaged in practical
and useful employments. The convent became the house of industry as well
as the temple of prayer. The forest glades echoed to the stroke of the
axe as well as to hymns of praise. Yes, as Carlyle writes of the twelfth
century, "these years were no chimerical vacuity and dreamland peopled
with mere vaporous phantasms, but a green solid place, that grew corn
and several other things. The sun shone on it, the vicissitudes of
seasons and human fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug,
furrowed fields ploughed and houses built."

_The Spread of the Benedictine Rule_

It is generally held that Benedict had no presentiment of the vast
historical importance of his system; and that he aspired to nothing
beyond the salvation of his own soul and those of his brethren.

But the rule spread with wonderful rapidity. In every rich valley arose
a Benedictine abbey. Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, France and Spain
adopted his rule. Princes, moved by various motives, hastened to bestow
grants of land on the indefatigable missionary who, undeterred by the
wildness of the forest and the fierceness of the barbarian, settled in
the remotest regions. In the various societies of the Benedictines there
have been thirty-seven thousand monasteries and one hundred and fifty
thousand abbots. For the space of two hundred and thirty-nine years the
Benedictines governed the church by forty-eight popes chosen from their
order. They boast of two hundred cardinals, seven thousand archbishops,
fifteen thousand bishops and four thousand saints. The astonishing
assertion is also made that no less than twenty emperors and forty-seven
kings resigned their crowns to become Benedictine monks. Their convents
claim ten empresses and fifty queens. Many of these earthly rulers
retired to the seclusion of the monastery because their hopes had been
crushed by political defeat, or their consciences smitten by reason of
crime or other sins. Some were powerfully attracted by the heroic
element of monastic life, and these therefore spurned the luxuries and
emoluments of royalty, in order by personal sacrifice to achieve
spiritual domination in this life, and to render their future salvation
certain. But whatever the motive that drew queens and princes to the
monastic order, the retirement of such large numbers of the nobility
indicates the influence of a religious system which could cope so
successfully with the attractions of the palace and the natural passion
for political dominion.

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