Social and Political Influence of the Monks Among the Anglo-Saxons (part 2 of 3)
struction and to agriculture. We flatter ourselves that we
have furnished, almost at every page of these volumes, evidence of what they have done for the intellectual nourishment of England. It has been seen, that among the Anglo- 3" Cf. Lappenberg, i. 198.
^^ " Sic mos est Saxonicae gentis, quod in nonnullis nobilium bonoruruque hominum prsediis, non ecclesiara sed SanctaCrucis signuinDeo dicatum, cum magno honore almum, in alto erectum, ad commodam diurnaj orationis sedulitatera solent habere."— Vita S. Willibaldi, ap. Mabillon, Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. iv.
^^ LiNGARD, Op, cit., ii. 87-107.
Saxons, as well as among the Celts of Ireland, Caledonia, and Cambria, monasteries were the sole centres of a religious and liberal education, and that knowledge was there at once much sought, very varied, and very literary. This was not the case solely in the isolated cloisters which were devoted to monastic education. The bishops, all of whom came out of monasteries, changed the cloisters of their cathedrals into schools, and collected around them a numerous band of youths eager for work and for study.
One of those public benefactors who distinguished himself the most in this respect, was John, whose name we have already met as one of the intruders who repeatedly divided between them the diocese of Wilfrid.33 We may justly be blamed for not dwelling longer on him, so great was his popularity among the English of his own day7and until the end of the middle ages.^ Though he was best known under the name of St. John of Beverley, from the place where he passed the last four years of his life in solitude, and which afterwards became one of the greatest monastic establishments of the north of England,3-5 he was in the first place a monk at Whitby under the great Abbess Hilda, and afterwards bishop, in succession, of Hexham and York. He was a disciple of Archbishop Theodore, and it was he who had the honor of conferring the orders of deacon and priest upon the Venerable Bede. Between these two great luminaries of the Anglo- Saxon Church, he himself shone during his thirty- p^c-.g two years' episcopate with a pure and gentle light, thanks to his tender anxiety for all the spiritual and temporal necessities of his flock, and the supernatural help which he
'^^ See p. 409, note 240, and p. 432.
'* The banner of St. John of Beverley was placed with those of St. Wilfrid and St. Cuthbert on the sacred cart at the battle of the Standard in 11C8 (see p. 445). The same banner was the oriflamme of Edward I. in one of his great expeditions. Two centuries later the popularity of the holy .abbot of Beverley was renewed by the coincidence of the feast of his translation, celebrated in 1037 on the 2uth October, falling on the day of the victory of Agincourt. Shakespeare (as also the Roman Breviary) speaks only of St. Crispin and Crispianus as patrons of that day. But in August, 1421, Henry V. gave thanks for his victory before the shrine of the Anglo- Saxon saint at Beverley.
^* It included a monastery of Benedictines, a college of canons, and a nunnery. The church, built at first by St. John, was destroyed by the Danes, re-established by Athelstane, respected by William the Conqueror, and reljuilt magnificently in the thirteenth century. It is one of the finest monuments of English architecture. brought to them m their sicknesses and troubles. Bede has devoted several chapters full of interest to his history. He exhibits him to us employing the most minute and affectionate pains to heal a poor young cripple, who was dumb and afflicted with scurvy, of all his infirmities, but especially of his dumbness, teaching him by the aid of heaven to speak and read, and beginning with the alphabet like the humblest of teachers.^^
But another scene, which touches our subject more immediately, is that in which we behold him surrounded by a group of youths, some ecclesiastics, but the greater part laymen, whom the monk-bishop trained to the study of letters and music, without extinguishing in them the taste for athletic exercises, which was then, as now, inherent in the English race. These students followed their master on ancfhorse- horseback through his pastoral visitations, and when they found themselves on level ground took advantage of the occasion to ride races with each other at the risk of breaking their heads, as happened to a young monk, afterwards Abbot of Tynemouth, who related all these details to the Venerable Bede. The joyous impetuosity of the young horsemen, their entreaties to the bishop for permission to ride their races under his eyes, the consent which was finally wrested from him under the condition that his favorite among them should remain by his side, the impossibility which this favorite experienced of resisting the impulse and example of his comrades, his wild gallop to rejoin the others, his accident, his swoon, the tender anxiety of the good prelate, the cares which he lavished on the imprudent youth, passing the entire night in prayer by his side, until the dying young man opened his eyes, and said, " I know you; you are my bishop, whom I love; " all this makes up one of the most complete and attractive pictures in the abundant stores of the great monastic historian.^^
^^ " Jussit ad se intrare pauperem, ingresso eo, linguam proferre ex ore ac sibi ostendere jussit.... Dicito, inquiens, aliquod verbum, dicito Gee.... Addidit episcopus nomina litterarum: Dicito A: dixit ille A. Bicito B: dixit ille et hoc.... Neque ultra cessavit tota die ac nocte sequente, quantum viligare potuit... loqui aliquid, et arcana, suas cogitationis ac voluntatis, quod nunquam antea potuit, aliis ostendere." — Hist. Eccles., V. 2.
^' " Cum in primsevo adolescentiaj tempore in clero illius degerem legendi canendique studiis traditus... contigit nos iter agentes cum illo devenisse in viam planam et amplam aptamque cursui equorum: coeperuntque juvenes, maxime laici, postulare episcopum ut cursu majore equos suos invicem probare liceret. At ille primo negavit... sed ad ultimum multorum unanima
We must stop short here in order not to begin over again, as we should be too often tempted to do, the edifying but monotonous tale which proves the studious fervor of both masters and pupils in the monastic schools.
But it is impossible to avoid a brief notice of somces to what has been done by the monks in England for agriculture, the improvement of agriculture. It is impossible to forget the use they made of so many vast districts, uncultivated and uninhabited, covered with forests or surrounded with marshes. Such was, it must not be forgotten, the true nature of the vast estates given to the monks, aud which had thus the double advantage of offering to communities the most inaccessible retreat that could be found, and of imposing the least possible sacrifice upon the munificence of the givers. They surmounted all the difficulties which stared them in the face, of beginning the cultivation of a new country; the forests were cleared, the marshes made wholesome or dried up, the soil irrigated or drained according to the requirements of each locality; and bridges, roads, dikes, havens, and light-houses were erected wherever their possessions or influence extended, in evidence of their unwearied and watchful fervor. The half at least of broad Northumberland was lost in sandy plains and barren heaths; the half of East Anglia and a considerable part of Mercia were covered with marshes difficult of access, in the midst of which the future king, Ethelbald, found refuge with the hermit Guthlac: yet in both regions the monks substituted for these uninhabited deserts fat pasturage and abundant harvests.^^
The latter district, the present name of which {the Fens) alone recalls the marshy and unwholesome nature of the original soil, became the principal theatre of the triumphs of agricultural industry performed by the monks. Medehamstede,^^ Ely, Croyland, Thorney, Ramsey, were the first battle-fields of these conquerors of nature, these monks who
intentione devictus: Facite, iiiquit, %d vultis.... Ipse diligentius obsccrans, ut et mihi certandi cum illis copia daretur.... Cum saepius, spectante me ct episcopo, concitatis in cursum equis revertcrentur, ipse lascivio animo non me potui coliibero, sed, prohibcnte licet illo, ludentibus me miscui.... Audivi ilium post tergum mihi cum gemitu diccntem: qiiam magnam vce facis mihi sic equitando.... Dum fervens equus quoddam itineris concavum valentiore impetu transiliret, lapsus decidi, sensum perdidi.... Evenit ut... infracto pollice capitis quoque junctura solveretur. ... Vomebam saguincm.... At ego aperiens oculos aio: Etiam; tu es aniistes amatiis." — Bkde, v. 6.
38 Cf. LiNGARD, i. 267.
^® The original name of Peterborough; see p. 331. made of tlieraselves ploughmen, breeders and keepers of stock, and who were the true fathers of English agriculture, which, thanks to their traditions and example, has become the first agriculture in the world.
The English word improvement, so frequently used, and so expressive in relation to everything that concerns bodily and mental labor, seems to have been invented expressly for their use. As much might be said for another word, more ancient still but not less used— the word landlord, which expresses not only the sentiment of dominion and territorial possession, but also that kind of tutelary and almost paternal solicitude which so happily combines the obligations and the rights of property. They were the best of landlords; such is the testimony given, by all attentive and conscientious observers of the past history of England, to the monks who were the originators of ecclesiastical property in that country, and who long remained its sole guardians. It was not only by their gifts, by their able and generous indulgence towards their direct dependants, that the}^ exercised upon the inferior classes an influence always benevolent, and always gratefully acknowledged. It was by the effectual, enlightened, and unwearied protection which they extended to the poor- and weak, who were under other laws and served other masters. '• They were," according to one of the great masters of modern learning, " permanent mediators between the rich and poor, between the strong and the weak; and it must be said to their eternal honor that they understood and fulfilled in a marvellous way the duties of this noble mission. They alone had the right and the means of arresting the rough hand of power, of mitigating the just severity of the law, of showing a gleam of hope to the eye of the slave, and of finding, even in this world, a place and means of existence for all those forsaken ones whose existence was ignored by the State." ^^ Thus, then, thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Benedictines, the maternal authority of the Church began to extend over all weakness and suffering. It grew visibly, interposing whenever it was necessary against all violence and tyranny.
*^ Kemble, Saxons in England, a^oI. ii. p. 375.
III.
How, then, was this office, so godlike and glori- intimate ous, given, from the very beginning of Christianity in England, to the abbots, the great monks, and the bishops, who were produced by the monastic order? The influence of Christian faith and morality, of Scy!'"'' which they were the interpreters and guardians, contributed to it more than any other reason. But it would be unjust to pass over another cause, almost as effectual —the close and lasting union between the monastic order and the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. This aristocracy, converted by the monks, promptly and cordially opened its ranks to them. History has not preserved the memory of any race which adopted, not only the belief, but the precepts and counsels of the Gospel with more enthusiasm than did the high nobil ity, which was composed of the dynasties and ruling families of the Heptarchy. Never and nowhere have so many men of royal or patrician race devoted themselves to the hard discipline of the cloister, to the penitential life of anchorites, to the dangers inseparable from pilgrimages and missions in countries still pagan. This aristocracy, fond of fighting, of good cheer, of all sensual pleasures, and of pomp and magnificence which, both in their own persons and in those of their descendants, became proverbial,"^! found itself all at once ripe for the noblest exploits of self-mortification, of Gospel humility, and chastity. After the first foreign masters, new apostles, issued from its own bosom, continued to show it the path of Christian virtue, marching resolutely at its head.
From thence sprang an alliance between the aristocracy and the clergy, between religion and the State, more characteristic, intimate, and cordial, as has been already said, than existed anywhere else in the Teutonic and Christian world. Anglo-Saxon princes and nobles became in rapid succession monks, abbots, and bishops; but these prelates and clergy, belonging to the sovereign races, retained, in their own country and among their neighbors, a place equal or superior to that which they occupied as laymen. They were instantly recognized or elevated to the most important rank in English society. On the other hand, this rank and those functions were often coveted by men inspired with passions *' "Ex pompa Anglum intelliges." — Guill. Malmesb., Vita p. 7. very different from the sacred fire which burned in the heart of Wilfrid, Benedict Biscop, Guthlac, and the other saints who belonged to the highest ranks of Anglo-Saxon nobility.
In England, as elsewhere, and perhaps more than elsewhere, this intimate alliance between the heads of the two forms of society, spiritual and temporal, and the constant mutual action of the one on the other, produced results dear and salutary to the Church as well as to the State. The advantage, however, was almost always greater for the State than for the Church, and indeed sometimes became dangerous and compromised the latter. Abuses there, as everywhere, inevitably followed benefits. These will be evident but too soon. At the same time, before going on to consideration of the shadows which it is impossible to deny or suppress in a sincere historic picture, let us first contemplate the light which preceded them.
^ It was not certainly by any encroachment either Their inter- - J' -^ .-^ ventionin Open or conceaicd on the rights oi others, nor by ernmenr" any sccrot or violent means, that the heads of the zatlon*!"**"^' monastic order rose to the highest rank in the Anglo-Saxon nation. They were called to it by the natural course of things and the unanimous voice of men. Representatives of the most elevated social offices, initiated into all the necessities of elective government, of communal life, and voluntary subordination, they took their place naturally in a government based, in the first place, upon a social hierarchy consecrated by mutual service and hereditary or freely offered devotion; and in the second, upon the sovereign and permanent action of public assemblies.^ These envoys of Christianity brought an essentially important and much desired sanction to the usages and institutions which substituted among those noble scions of the Teutonic race the proud independence of an often heroic, but sometimes exacting and troublesome, devotion, for the abject submission of the degraded serfs of the Roman Empire.
Not only the bishops, who all belonged to the monationai uastic Order, but abbots, and often abbesses, occuassembiies. ^^[q^ i\^q fjj,g^ place in thoso national or provincial assemblies which have been so often referred to in this narrative, and which, under the name of Witenagemot, or assembly of wise men, were the cradle of the English Parliament; guaranteeing to the Anglo-Saxon people the benefit of a government sustained and controlled by the lay and ecclesiastical nobility, and making decisions which could not be violated or despised with impunity by any monarch.
At the period which we have now arrived at, each kingdom of the Heptarchy, and even each of the tribes comprised in or absorbed by the greatest of those kingdoms,'^^ had its special assembly, an institution retained at a later period, when England was united under the sceptre of one monarch, by each shire or province. But there also existed assemblies more or less general, the authority of which was recognized in differing degrees by all the divisions of the conquering race. To these conferences especially, which ecclesiastical historians have honored with the name of councils, the presence of several monk-bishops, presided over by their metropolitan, a monk like themselves, had the power of giving a more august character. The council of Hertford, presided over by the Greek Theodore,^^ decreed that a general synod should be held twice a year at Cloveshove. But, besides that this assembly appears to have been exclusively ecclesiastical, there is no evidence that its de-
cree was obeyed. A century passed before England pos-
sessed one sole, permanent, and regular assembly. At the same time, from the introduction of Christianity, local or national assemblies became visible, constituting a great council of the whole country, and meeting periodically at Christmas and at Easter.
The monastic prelates held their seats in these Their cornassemblies, at once as the doctors and spiritual pos'^Jonguides of the nation and as great landed proprietors, whose importance was daily increased by the extent of the new gifts which were lavished upon them, and by the increasing agricultural value of their old possessions. They sat in the first rank with the principal lords, the great chiefs of the nobility, the governors of provinces, called earls or ealdormen; ^ and above the other proprietors who, under the name of thanes, composed the greater part of the assembly. According to the theory most generally received by modern learning,^ each thane or proprietor might reach the rank of *• Such as the Ilwiccas, the Middle Angles in Mercia, and the Gyrwas in East Anglia.
•' See p. 353.
*^ Whom Bede entitles duces or comites, proving their rank to be equal to that of the bishop. Ealdor or elder answers to the Latin senior, from whence comes seigneur. This ancient title, once the first in the Saxon hierarchy, the bearers of which, either hereditary or for their lifetime, were almost the equals of the king, maybe recognized to-day in the name of alderman, which. has fallen exclusively, as we have already remarked, to elective municipal officials in London and the other great cities.
** See Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. pp. 48, 115, 123, earl,^'^ by the choice of the king or nomination of the assembly. Every ceorl, or free man, whatever his origin might be, could be advanced to the rank of thane if he possessed lands of a certain extent. Every merchant who had made three journeys beyond seas rose into the same class. But no nobleman by birth could sit in the Witenagemot unless he were a landed proprietor.^''
Whatever uncertainty maj^ exist as to the distinctive qualifications of the two principal elements of these assemblies, it is proved that, far from forming different castes, the eorls and thanes ^^ were only the first among the free men, the
130, 135, 137 (Paris edition, 1840); Palgrave, Eise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, vol. ii. pp. 376, 385; and Kemble, The Saxons in England, vol. i. c. v.
^•^ Kemble, however, believes that, like the kings, they could be taken only from certain principal families.
'"' It was necessary to possess five hydes, or mansi, for three generations, in order to be a thane, and forty to be an eorl or ealdorman. This distinction is principally founded on the evidence of a monastic historian of Ely (^Liber Eliensis, ap. Gale, scriptores, vol. ii. c. 40), speaking of the brother-in-law of his abbot, who could not, for want of those forty hydes, obtain the hand of the daughter i^rapoteniis viri. He adds, " Licet nobilis esset, inter proceres tunc nominari non potuit." Let us state, at the same time, that Kemble disputes the necessity of a territorial qualification for admission to the Witan. And let us also remember that Abbot Benedict Biscop received eight of these ma7isi or lands for an illuminated volume. The real amount of the hyde (in German hof) remains to be discovered; the opinions of the learned are cruelly diverse on this respect, varying between a minimum of 30 acres and a maximum of 120. The acre, or day's measure, meant here, as everywhere, as much land as a pair of oxen could plough in a day. Cf. Ellis, Introduction to Domesday Book, and Kemble, op. cit.
'^ The meaning of the Avord thane, or thegn, has evidently varied like that of fidelis, or leude among the Franks, but it answers most generally to the milites or harones of later times. — Palgkave, vol. ii. pp. 33, 376. The members of the Anglo-Saxon parliaments yconventiis, synodus, concilium) received thus in public acts and in contemporary authors all sorts of different designations, of which the following are the principal: Proceres, sapientes, principes, senatores, primates, optimates, magnates, majores natu, procuratores patriae (of this last title there are five examples in Kemble, vol. ii. 199). Many of the acts of these assemblies quoted in the Codex Diplomaticvs jEvi Saxonici, are furnished with signatures which aid us in proving their composition. The most considerable number of signatures received in one assembly (that of Cloveshove in 825) is 121, of whom 95 were monks or clerks. A charter of 934 proves the presence at the gemot of the king, of
4 Welsh princes.
2 archbishops.
17 bishops.
4 abbots.
12 dukes or ealdormen.
62 thanes.
91; described as " tota populi generalitate."
Heads and representatives of a territorial aristocracy the ranks of which were open to all, like that which has constituted the strength, greatness, and freedom of England for so many centuries, and which, from the beginning, was a national force representing the vital strength of the people, and its interests, will, and immemorial liberties."^^ The popular element also appears and increases slowly as we advance in history. All the inhabitants of the neighborhood had a right to be present at the assemblies, which, for the most part, were held in the open air; they exercised at least the right of condamatlon, which consisted in giving their public adherence to the decisions; they could also, according to Palgrave, make complaints and disclose their injuries.'^*^ Everything leads us to suppose that the crowd was swelled by a great number of monks, while their elective chiefs, bishops and abbots of the principal monasteries, took decisive part in the votes and deliberations.
In the temporal and spiritual government of the Anglo-Saxon nations, nothing escaped the action of these assemblies. They not only gave forth laws, assemblies, they shared the actual government with the kings, and took part in all their acts, at least so far as to sanction them. No royal charter or document of state exists which does not prove at once the intervention of the assembly of wise men, and the presence of the monastic clergy in that assembly. The king could do nothing without their help or sanction.^^ No important affair was treated, no sovereign t^^^^iv attridecision taken, without this help or sanction, from the nomination of a bishop to the foundation or exemption from national burdens of a new monastery .^^ The spirit of
*^ The people, says Kemble, were the true aristocracy; the nobles were only its chiefs, as the English peers are at present the born chiefs of the aristocracy of freeholders and ten-pound householders. Vol. i. p. 258.
'"^ Thus, in the gift given by Duke Ethelstane to the Monastery of Abingdon, the fixing of boundaries, and the excommunication pronounced against transgressors, is confirmed in this fashion: — " Et dixit omnis populus qui ibiaderat: Fiat, fiat. Amen." In Saxon, " Sy hit swa." Codex Diplom., n. 1129. A charter of Ethelred in 931 declares that the act is confirmed, " Tota plebis generalitate ovante."
*' Palgrave, vol. i. pp. G34: to 643; Lappenberg, vol. i. p. 577. Beside the great scholars who have in our time renewed the study of English origin, ought to be named a French writer, M. Albert du Boys, who, in his llistoire du Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, has conscientiously studied and estimated English institutions and legislation, not only in his third volume, which is exclusively devoted to Anglo-Norman feudal law, but also in the previous volumes, in which he has sot forth the part t.aken by the Anglo- Saxon clergy in the social and judicial organization of society.
*^ This is proved by the expressions of Bede: " Haec in jus sibi herediassociation and the habits of independence which were the foundation of Teutonic liberties, absolutely excluded all idea of social or political abdication into the hands of a master, charged, along with his principal domestics, to think, speak, and act for the nation. Every Anglo-Saxon tribe, great or small, considered itself equal to the management of its own affairs, like the powerful and unconquerable England of our own day. We have seen these assemblies possessed not only of the consultive voice, but deciding with supreme authority as to the introduction of Christianity in the different kingdoms. No public act was valid, no new law could be established, except after discussion by them. Laws were issued by their authority, conjoined to that of the king, never by the crown alone. They decided alliances and treaties of peace, as well as the election and deposition of kings; for among the Anglo-Saxons, as among the Franks, the hereditary character of royalty was by no means absolute. The national assembly chose among the members of the national dynasty the candidate who suited them best. At each election the contract between the king and the people was renewed, often with new clauses, as has been seen in modern history in the capitulations of the Emperors of Germany and the Kings of Hungary. As for the deposition of kings, the assemblies made little diflSculty about it, when their government was unjust or unfortunate; and the monastic clergy, like all the other members of the body political, acquiesced without scruple.^^ "With still better reason they regulated everything that concerned the imposition of taxes for the public service, the levy of troops, the use to be made of fines or confiscations suffered by those who broke the penal law, the grants of territory made from the public lands either to monasteries ^ or great captains. In short, they exercised
tarium edictis regalibus faciunt ascribi, ipsasque quoque litteras privilegiorum suorum... pontificum, abbatum et potestatum saeculi obtinent subscriptione confirmari." — Epist. ad Ecgherthum. Cf. Lingard, voL i. pp. 412, 413.
*^ See the deposition of Sigebert, King of Wessex, in 755 by the princes and the people of his kingdom (" Provida deliberatione et unanimo omnium consensu." — Henri de Huntingdon); and that of Beornred, King of Mercia in 757, to make room for Offa: " Convenerunt in unum omnes, tarn nobiles quam ignobiles, et Offa duce... ipsum a regno expulerunt.... Quo facto unanimo omnium consensu Ofiam in regem, tam clerus quam populus coronarunt." — Flores Ilisior., ap. Palgrave, ii. 279.
^* All the acts of this description bear the mention: "Cum licentia et consensu procerum "or " sapientium," &c. the functions of a supreme court, both in cases civil and criminal."-^
No trace is to be found in the Anglo-Saxon historians of any distinction between the assemblies which treated ecclesiastical affairs and those which regulated secular life. Both were managed by the ^^ same body, and at the same sitting. It is, however, very probable that the clergy deliberated apart, at least in the first place, with the aid of the king alone.^*^ reserving only a power of ratification to the general assembly. The distinction between temporal and spiritual matters was not the less clearly maintained, decrees touching doctrine or discipline made out by the bishops alone being published at the head of the acts of the national assemblies, and apart from the other decisions submitted for the sanction of public authority.^"
There is, however, in the history of the first centuries of the Church in England, no trace of the 'JunX-^''- conflict between the two powers which afterwards became so frequent, so bitter, and prolonged. As for the encroachments of spiritual authority in ancf^n'se-' temporal matters in the sphere of national life of ^pon^iJwa which these assemblies were the centre, nobody and morals, was tempted to complain of, or even to perceive its existence. Yet the public of these days was much less able to appreciate the salutary and wonderful results of the influence of monastic prelates and missionaries upon the institutions and character of the Anglo-Saxons than we are. At present the most prejudiced critics are compelled to avow that the influence of the monastic clergy in the public and social life of the English was of the most benevolent and eff"ectual character. To them must be attributed, from the time of the first laws made by the parliament of Ethelbert, under the influence of the Roman missionaries,^^ the gradual progress of humanity and justice in the national legislation, which up to that period had been too feeble to struggle against the ferocious and covetous instincts of the barbarous conquerors.
To them belongs also the honor of that transfermation of morals and souls which, notwithstanding create
" Bede, passim; Ohron. Angl.- Saxon., and Eemble, vol. ii. ** This is the opinion of Kemble, who believes that there were two houses, as among the Franks, one composed of hiymcn and the other of ecclesiastics, but both under the presidency of the king.
^^ LiNGAKD, Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 33.
58 " Juxta exemplum Romanorum." — Bede, ii. 5. See p. 183.
^ thousand backslidings and a thousand melancholy fallings back into ancient barbarism, showed itself "°'™ in the generosity and piety of the laymen, in the obedience and fervor of a clergy drawn daily in greater numbers from the bosom of the native population. To them the credit of having introduced into the laws and customs a respect for property, and, above all, for human life, no trace of which had previously existed among the savage invaders of Great Britain. To them the honor of having contributed more than any other, by the uniformity of their wise counsels and good examples, by the unity of their doctrine and discipline to introduce into the Anglo-Saxon nations a unity of legislation and of government which gradually led to national unity. They strengthened the throne by teaching and enforcing the practice of Christian virtues; they sanctioned and regulated the ancient Teutonic principles of the responsibility of kings, of their subordination to law, to their sworn faith and social contracts; they placed those principles under the safeguard of religion by the solemnity of consecration; they thus imprinted an august and sacred, and at the same time a limited and conditional, character upon the throne. In addition to this, while forearming it against the excesses and usurpations of princes and lords, they labored energetically to give to it the force and authority necessary to triumph over the dismemberment of the Heptarchy, and to create that unity, not absolute and absorbing like that which has wasted or enervated other illustrious nations, but sufficient, and in conformity with the genius and necessities of the English race, and which, when once fully established in the ninth century, has never more run the risk of attack or alteration.^^
^^^ them above all belongs the honor of having introduced into morals and the laws that solicitude for the inferior classes which is too often absent from the hearts of the powerful. The discoveries of modem erudition have established without doubt the unexpected result that the material condition of the inferior and serf population was not universally a state of hardship. Their labors were not more severe nor their wages less than those of our own days.^'^ At the same time it is ^' Palgrave, pp. 655, 656; Lappenberg, i. 203. Since the union of the Heptarchy under Egbert of Wessex in 800, England has never been dismembered as France was repeatedly under the Carlovingians and Capets.
^*' Each serf received for himself and his family 720 loaves yearly, without counting the midday and evening meal. — Kemble, vol. i. p. 213. impossible to doubt that the weak were often made victims of the violence and wickedness of the strong in the ancient English world, as everywhere else. How many oppressed innocents, how many violated rights, how many unknown or unpunished crimes existed in the midst of silence and isolation, in the vast regions still so sparsely inhabited? But in proportion as religion penetrated by the influence of the monks, light arose, and justice appeared. Little by little, voices which could not be stifled arose, powerful hands were elevated to protect and avenge the victims. The oppressor stopped trembling; he had to bow, to repent, to make restitution, to expiate; and expiation almost always took the form of an act of fraternal charity, a service rendered to the community. As religious and monastic influence increased in the nation, the habit and duty of soothing suffering and remedying injustice became general. In every powerful family frequent acts of voluntary renunciation took the place of the brigandage, the robberies, and violence which had been up to that time their daily bread.
Every crime that was expiated, every penance that was accomplished by the efforts of the monks, thus contributed to public utility and happiness.^^ The long-unpunished culprits from whom the new faith wrested a tardy confession, an act of contrition or restitution, were often exempted from bodily penances, but were always constrained to pay the ransom of that exemption by acts of charity, which not only eased actual misery, but provided for the necessities of the future.
The penances imposed by the monks upon these great sinners and penitents, were not pious works and ecclesiastical foundations alone, but oftener still the deliverance of captives, the mending of a road, the rebuilding of a bridge or of cottages, the food and maintenance of peasants brought to want by intestine wars; ^'^ they had a thousand devices, a thousand resources, all consecrated to the same charitable and sacred end.
The abundant gifts showered upon the churches and monasteries by the fervor of new Christians, and at the same time by the remorse of opulent sinners, were thus transformed into great and permanent benefits for the suffering members of society, for the poor and homeless, the sick, the
"' BcRKE, Essay on English History, p. 223. ** LiNGARD, Antiquities, vol. i. p. 258.
widows, orphans, and poor travellers who were exposed to so many dangers and trials by the rudeness of the time. By this means an unfailing channel was established by which the munificence of the rich, the strong, and the happy of this world flowed forth upon the weak, the poor, and the unfortunate. It was a great public office which, without being regulated or imposed by law, took the place of all the complications with which modern legislation has invested public charity .^'5 In short, it was the realization and application of that great law of mercy and brotherly compassion which is one of the most solid and necessary foundations of human society.
Among the services rendered by the Anglo-Saxon monks
to Suffering humanity, none is more touching or liberauoa ™ore continual than their solicitude for those who stood on the lowest step of the social hierarchy—the slaves. The famous incident of the English captives bought in the Roman market by St. Gregory, shows us, at the beginning of this narrative, that even the sons of the conquering race were not safe from this climax of misery. But under the progressive power of the faith preached by the missionaries of Pope Gregory and their successors, the number of slaves gradually diminished.*'^ Notwithstanding that the trade was forbidden by decrees and councils, a hundred times repeated, and too often evaded, it continued to be carried on as a matter of commerce,^^ but very few slaves were kept in the country itself They did not, however, form a separate race, sprung either from the conquering Saxons or the vanquished Britons; they were recruited from the descendants of Roman slaves, from unransomed prisoners of war, and delinquents condemned to penal servitude. The monks devoted their most strenuous exertions to the still further reduction of the number. The example of the noble Wilfrid, whose first act was to free the 250 serfs who were given him by the King of the South Saxons, along with the lands intended for his episcopal monastery, proves that they were capable of seeking the freedom of their fellow-creatures at their own expense.
®^ Kemble, vol. ii. pp. 514-516.
"'' Kemble, i. 220; Lappenbeeg, i. 575; Palgrave, i. 29. At the end of the Anglo-Saxon period there were only 25,000 in England according to the census in Domesday Booh, which reckons 275,000 proprietors.
^^ It was, however, forbidden to sell them to heathens; the laws of Ethelred and Canute contain formal prohibitions in this respect. or THE MONKS. 625
Stern truth compels us to confess that this was not the case everywhere. The honest pen of monastic annalists has preserved the letter of a monk of royal Mercian blood, Brithwald, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he insists upon the deliverance of a young slave who was held in bondage by the Abbot of Glastonbury. " Since I have failed," he writes to the Bishop of Sherborne, " in the first entreaty I addressed to him by word of mouth in your presence, I think it my duty to send you this letter from the girl's brother, and beseech you to make the abbot accept the three hundred sols which the bearer will give you for her ransom, that she may be sent back to us, to pass the rest of her life among her own people, not in the sadness of slavery, but in the joy of freedom. He will thus lose nothing of the right he has over her." 66
This is the only example of monastic slave-holding which I have been able to discover, and fortunately the prompt and generous amendment of the evil is to be found by the side of the evil itself. If it had been otherwise, with what authority could the monks have labored for the extinction of this plague? They neglected no means besides of diminishing the number of cases in which slavery could be legalized or tolerated. The emancipation or redemption of slaves was the work of charity which they most recommended and insisted on. Thanks to their presence in the political assemblies, provisions were introduced into the laAvs freeing the slaves who had been overworked by their masters, or who had been obliged to work on Sunday .*^7 And by their presence at the deathbed of so many penitent -sinners, they were able to introduce clauses into wills which provided for the salvation
*® " Quomodo petitio mea, qua precatus sum coram te venerabilem Beornvaldum abbatem de conccdenda unius captivae puellae... redemptione, in irritum, contra quod credidi, cessit... obsecro ut ipse omnino obtineas a praedicto abbate, quatcnus... tradas illara hue usque perducendain, quod possit reliquum vitaj sua) spatium cum consanguineis suis, non in servitutis tristitia, sed in libertatis transigere letitia.... Frater noster Beornwaldus nihil, ut ajstimo, de eo quod in ea juste possedit, araittit." — Intcj- Epid. S. Bonifacii, n. 7, ed. Jaffe. It has been already seen that Arclibishop Britliwald had been educated at Glastonbury before he was elected abbot of the royal monastery of Reculver. Cf. Bede, v. 8, and Hook, Lives of the Archbishops, vol. i. pp. 178 and 188.
*' See specially the law made by Ina by the advice of the two archbishops, Hedda and Erconwald: " Si servus operetur dominica die per ])ra3ceptum domini sui, sit liber." The council of Berkhampstead condemned to a fine of eighty pence the master who compelled his serf to work on Sunday. From thence comes the name of Freolsday, or day of freedom, given to Sunday. — Lingard, i. 310. of the soul of the dying, by giving freedom to the survivors. Nothing was more frequent in the Codex Diplomaticus of the Anglo-Saxon period than acts of manumission, and all, or almost all, stated the religious motives which produced these acts, and the religious guarantees which sanctioned them. The freed slave was offered to God before the altar of the nearest church, and then declared free in presence of the monks and the congregation of the faithful. It was upon the fly-leaf of the book of the Gospels, or some other churchbook, that the charter of affranchisement was registered.^^ The first vindications of individual freedom have thus come down to us inscribed on the margin of monastic missals, as the first indications of parliamentary government appear in the gifts given to monasteries with the sanction of assembled Witans.
These glorious and persevering apostles of the laws of God neither despised nor neglected any of the rights of men. Honor and justice, humanity and pity, knowledge and reason, were placed along with the new faith and Christian morality under the safeguard of their precepts and their unwearied watchfulness. All things fair and lovely and of good report which man has a right to love and desire, after as well as before his conversion, and more warmly still, being a Christian, than when he was not so — all the natural virtues, all the legitimate aspirations of the sons ofAdam— were appreciated, claimed, and defended under the forms accessible or possible in these far-distant days, with an energy, watchfulness, and courage of which there are few examples in history, by the monastic apostles of Great Britain.
I have sought out with laborious care, and related with scrupulous truthfulness, everything that could throw light on the influence of Christianity, as preached by the monks, upon the early history of the English people. I have acknowledged that here, as everywhere else, this divine religion has been too often powerless and ineffectual amid the coarse and perverse inclinations of fallen nature. But I have met at every step the brilliant victories of self-devotion and faith, of disinterestedness and purity, of true greatness, true courage, and the most magnanimous charity. And what is still more wonderful and more consoling is the total absence, not to be m^t with in the same degree in the most boasted ages and .circumstances, of everything which degrades or com-
^^.Kemble, Saxons in England, vol i. p. 225.
promises religion in those who teach and represent it, I assert joyfully that in the lives of so many apostles and ministers of celestial verity, I have not come upon a single evidence of fanaticism, of egotism, of baseness, severity, or stupid indifference to human sufferings. The student will search in vain in the records of those forgotten lives for traces of anything narrow, sombre, or pitiless; he will find there nothing that could enslave or enervate the human heart— nothing which could wound good sense, reason, or justice — nothing which savors of that arrogant and cruel Pharisaism with which all priesthoods are attacked or threatened— nothing, in short, which does not breathe respect for the freedom of souls, and the most exquisite sense of honor in all the things of God.
IV.
But there is yet another result for which we owe them everlasting gratitude. The monastic missionaries, while they transformed the morals and faith of the Anglo-Saxon conquerors, did nothing to changrngit. change the native genius of the Teutonic race.
They made of it a nation of Christians more fervent, more liberal, more docile, and attached to the Church, more magnificent in its gifts to monasteries, more fruitful in saintly men and women,*^'-* than any other contemporary nation; but they deprived it of none of its public virtues, none of its bold and energetic instincts; they did not withdraw from it an atom of its manful nature, they diminished in nothing the boldness and independence which have remained up to our own day the distinguishing characteristics of the English people.
The influence of a new faith never respected more scrupulously the unity, independence, and powerful originality of the converted race, of its language, manners, institutions, its ancient laws, and its national spirit."'^
** Without speaking of holy bishops, abbots, hermits, &c., twenty-three kings and sixty queens, princes, or princesses, sprung from the ditTerent Anglo-Saxon dynasties, are reckoned from the seventh to the eleventh century among the saints recognized by the Church. No other nation has ever furnished such a contingent.
'** This is loyally acknowledged by the German Protestant Lappenberg (vol. i. 132, 144, G2D), in contradiction to the superannuated tirades of Hume, Henry, Soames, and the servum pecus of their copyists in England and France.
628 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE
Augustin and Paulinus, Wilfrid and Theodore, emissaries of Borne, as they have been called by certain historians, and who were in reality the most direct agents, the most immediate envoys from the Holy See which had been yet seen in Christendom, neither introduced nor attempted to introduce any essential change in the political and social institutions, so different from those of the Roman world, which the Anglo- Saxon nation had brought from the shores of Germany, or found in the smoking ruins of Great Britain. Satisfied with having deposited in these brave hearts the secrets of eternity, the rules of moral life, and strength to struggle against the corruption natural to every man born of woman, they left intact the spirit of the race, so that underneath his Christian vestment the old Teuton sfill stood perfect and complete.