Social and Political Influence of the Monks Among the Anglo-Saxons (part 3 of 3)

Many times already in this narrative, following the example of many other writers, we have remarked upon the singular unchangeableness of the Anglo-Saxon character. Manners, vices, virtues, laws, customs, rights, names, titles, tastes, language, spirit, even down to its sports and violent exercises, everything that the modern world admires or fears, is attracted or repelled by, in the England of to-day; ^^ all is to be found in germ or flower in the England of twelve centuries ago. No nation has been less changed by time or conquest.

All the towns and almost all the villages of modern England seem to have existed from the time of the Saxons; the names and actual boundaries of parishes, counties or shires, with their sub-divisions, their judicial and political machinery, their religious and civil life, all date back into the period between the seventh and tenth centuries.

But the names and external forms are far from being all that have endured — it is the soul, the glorious and manful soul, of the converted Saxon which reveals itself in the modern Englishman. Civil virtues altogether unknown to the enslaved Christians of Rome and Byzantium, and above all, that lofty sentiment of self-respect in certain men and '^^ "The modern Englishman is already to be found in the Saxon. Each man in his own house, master of himself, erect and complete, with nothing to control or encroach upon him." — Taixe, Ristoire de la Litterature Anglaise. Any who read the most faithful and complete picture I know of the political and social organization of England — that given by M. Le Play in liis admirable work, La Reforme Sociale — will be struck with the persistence of the distinctive features of British character and institutions as they appear among the Saxons. certain classes which is the cradle of all liberty, developed themselves in the shadow of those wonders of humility, selfabnegation, charity, and piety, of which we have spoken at such length— and formed the foundation of that public spirit and those public rights which have never ceased to grow amid all the storms and eclipses. Self-government, that is to say, the proud independence of the free man among his fellows in the general commonwealth — and parliamentary government, that is, the unequal division of supreme power between the crown and the national assemblies — already existed in their essential elements. When it was needful, by a natural, though too often momentary, outburst, public freedom stepped forth, armed and invincible in the collective force of individual and local freedom. The common law of England, that traditional and unwritten code, '^ the sources of which are as unknown as those of the Nile," "^ plunges its roots into old Saxon customs, recognized, sanctioned, and published in those assemblies which were inspired and filled up by our monks; and all charters, as well as all ulterior revolutions, have served only to define and confirm that ancient and immovable foundation of English freedom.'^

To hearts thus tempered, and a race thus ruled, Agroemeut the monastic institution, under the form which turmonashad adopted in England, must have been in sympa- tie order thy and accord, even independently of the religion spirit of of which it was the fruit and ornament. The monasteries were types of those great existences, once individual and collective, founded on a great moral idea, but supported by great landed property, which are still distinctive features of the social machinery of England; which have everywhere been one of the essential conditions of public freedom; and which seem as natural to the masculine and active genius of the ancient Teutonic races as they are alien to modern civilization and incompatible with Ca3sarism. For this reason it was to be expected that a natural liking for monasteries, whose founders had brought from the heart of Roman slavery a system of common security, spontaneous freedom, and elective functions entirely in conformity with the instincts and habits of the Teutonic races, should have arisen among the Anglo-Saxons.

Hence no doubt sprang that inexhaustible munificence, that prodigality, so long displayed by the prodigality " Expression used by the celebrated Lord Chief-Justice Ilalcs. " Cf. EisciiEL, Die Verfassung Englands, p. 25.

Anglo-Suxon royalty and nobility in its relations wOh the monastic orders. The possessions of the Church, which then meant, almost exclusively, the possessions of monasteries, were increased daily by new foundations, or by fresh gifts added to previously existing establishments. We have already more than once pointed out the motives of these gifts, as they are expressed in the acts of the times, or as they are made evident by study of the circumstances and arrangements which accompanied them.

-^ profound feeling of the instability and decay gf everything human, and, above all, of material wealth '^^ humble gratitude towards God, from whom every good gift is held, and to whom a portion of His own blessings are believed to be restored by improving the condition of His ministers; '^ the desire and hope of expiating the faults of a troubled life, of redeeming the backslidings of human weakness, and of making restitution of ill-gotten wealth, either by guaranteeing the livelihood of a class of men exclusively devoted to the service of God and the practice of virtue,'^*^ or by securing permanent help and supply for the poor, the sick, and the forsaken; in the lack of natural heirs, the hope of creating a kind of spiritual posterity, bound to pray always for the soul of their benefactor; sometimes, as in the case of the Childe Ethelbald," who was an exile before he was a king, the recollection of and gratitude for benefits received, and shelter given in the monastic sanctuary oftener still the desire of securing for themselves and their friends a burial-place protected by holy places and holy men, and which should itself protect a religious community against the ingratitude and rapacity of the future; '^ and, in short, and always, the certainty of disposing of their lands for the advantage of the most industrious, useful, and charitable of men.

'^^ " Nihil intulimus in himc mundum, veram nee auferre quid possumus: iccirco torrenis ac caducis ceterna coelestis patriai prajniia mercanda sunt. Quapropter," &c. — Charter of Aldraed, prince of the Hwicoas, in 759, ap. Codex Diiylomat. JEvi Saxonici, vol. i. " Universa quippe quae hie in prjesentia nisibus humanis corporaliter contemplantur, nihil esse nisi vana, caduca, transitoriaque, ex sacrorura volumiuum testimoniis certissime verum patet; et tamen cum istis, ajternaliter sine fine mansura alta polorum regna et vigiter florentis paradisi amoenitas niercari a fidelibus queunt. Quapropter," &c. — Charter of OfFa, King of Mercia, in 779, ibid.

^^ " Quotiens Sanctis ac venei-abilibus locis vestris aliquid ofFere videmur, vestra nobis reddinius, non nostra largimur. Quapropter," &c. — Charter of Ethelred, King of Essex, 692, 093, ibid.

''^ LiNGARD, vol. i. p. 251. ⁷⁷ ggg j^g preceding chapter. ''^ BuKKE, op. cit., p. 225.

Such were the motives, legitimate and frankly confessed, which led so many Anglo-Saxon princes, lords, and rich men, to despoil themselves for the benefit of monasteries. They may be all summed up in that fine text which the Church still offers yearly to our meditation: " Concludemus eleemosynam in sinu pauperis et ipsa exorabit pro nobis." '^

But, as has happened everywhere and at all times, Ai,„geof in the history of the Church as well as in that of thetomthe world, evil rose by the side of the good, and *""'* ^^^^' abuses came in with a strong hand under the shelter of the most salutary customs. It is undeniable that these territorial grants made to monasteries exceeded the limits of justice and reason. " Donationes stuUissimce" says Bede, speaking of the gifts of the kings of Northumbria.^*^ Although made and sanctioned by royal authority, in concert with that of the parliaments or Witenagemot, they at last went so far as seriously to threaten the public peace.

This will be easily understood by recollecting the nature of landed property among the Anglo-Saxons. From the Conquest, or first establishment of laws of property, besides the Idot or allods,^^ given to the first occupants, vast territories were reserved for the public service, or for future division, the life-rent of which alone could be given to free men under certain conditions. Thiswds caWedfolc-land, the land of the people, and has been justly compared to the ager puolicus of the Romans.^^ j^Tq^ allods were taken from this, on occasion, to reward or encourage new services. Thus Benedict Biscop, the young lord who afterwards became the founder of Wearmouth and Yarrow, received from the king lands suitable to his rank, which he did not hesitate to restore to the king when he became a monk.*^ These territorial grants, whether given to laymen by hereditary right, or to religious communities, could only be granted by the king with the consent of his luitan, and in virtue of a charter or deed resembling a book — from whence came the name of hoc-land, or land given by book. Everything which did not continue part of the folc-land was thus designated. All donations of land made to the Church —

" Prayer Aitende, taken from Eccli. xxix. 15.
^° See above, p. 5G2.
«« Lots.
^* Kemble, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 289.

^^ " Cum csset Oswii regis minister, ct possessionem terr;c suo pradui competentem, illo donante perciperct, despexit militiam cum corruptibili donativo terrestrem." — Bede, Vita S. Bened., § 1, ap. Op. Min., ii. 140. that is to say, to monasteries — were made under this name and form. Subjects could make no other gifts, as the bocland was the only thing in their power. Kings might detach a bit of their own boc-land to make a gift of it, as Egfrid did to Benedict Biscop; ^* but the consent of the loitan was necessary in order to transform any portion of folc-land into a hereditary and perpetual patrimony .^^

Lands thus given to the monasteries were naturally withdrawn from those obligations relative to military service which weighed upon all landed proprietors, as is apparent from the expressions used by Bede in recording the donation made by King Oswy when he consecrated his daughter Elfleda to religious life. Besides his daughter, says the historian, he gave to the Church twelve estates of six families each, which were freed from earthly military service to furnish to the monks the means of devoting themselves to the celestial army, and praying for the eternal peace of the nation.®*^

This substitution of the spiritual combats of the celestial army for the military obligations of other Anglo-Saxon landowners was followed or accompanied by a still more important privilege conferred on the new monastic proprietors. The folc-land or public domain, when transformed into allods or boc-lands — that is to say, into individual property — remained subject to all the public or private burdens which weighed upon the domain, and at the same time became subject to ordinary imposts when the grant was given to laymen. But it was exempt from those burdens when given to monasteries; and when this exemption bad not been duly stipulated for in the original donations, deeds were afterwards drawn out, establishing them in the possession of privileges which the pious munificence of after generations made it a duty and pleasure to confer upon the monastic churches.^^

*' " Ut confestim ei terram septuaginta familiarum dc suo largitus, monasterium inibi pr^ciperet facere." — Bede, Hist. Abbat., c 4.

*" LiNGARD, vol. i. p. 250, and Note K, pp. 407-411.

^ "Donatis insuper rluodecim possessiunculis terrarum, in quibus ablato studio militiae terrestris ad exercendam militiam coelestem, supplicandumque pro pace gentis ejus ajterna, devotion! sedul^ monachorum locus facultasque suppeteret." — Bede, iii. 24. Kemble and Lingard do not hesitate to suppose that these twelve domains were taken from the folc-land and changed into boc-land for the advantage of the new monasteries. In the Anglo-Saxon translation, attributed to King Alfred, the word possessiuncula is translated boc-land.

®" The Codex Diplomaticus contains numberless deeds which secure the land " liberam ab omnibus terreuis difflcultatibus, sive a pasta regis, princi- It has been seen above that from the end of the seventh century a council had recognized this assumed exemption of monasteries from burdens and taxes — excepting only the three tributes or obligations from which no one was excused,^^ and which regarded the expenses of military expeditions, and the keeping up of bridges and of fortresses — as a general law.

The increasing number of monastic foundations, and the vast extent of territorial gifts lavished upon them, produced, at the end of about a century, an alarming result — the diminution of the military resources of the country. It was not, as has been said, that the nation became less warlike, or that a too exclusive regard for religious things had turned the kings and people of the Heptarchy from their public duties. But the number of proprietors bound to personal military service went on diminishing,— on one side, because of the change of lay lands into privileged monastic possessions; and on the other hand, by the many religious vocations which arose among the warlike nobility. The prince of the Anglo-Saxon monks, the illustrious Bede, was the first to point out this danger, with the frankness which was habitual to him. " In the midst of the peace and security which we enjoy," he wrote in 731, " many Northumbrians, some noble, some humble, put aside their arms, cut their hair, and hasten to enroll themselves in the monastic ranks, instead of exercising themselves in their military duties. The future will tell what good will result from this." ^^

Four years afterwards, in his famous letter to the Archbishop of York, which we have quoted at length,^'^ he expresses a much more energetic disapproval. He unveils at the same time the true character of the evil; he declares without hesitation that the defence of the country is endangered by the want of soldiers, and also by the want of public lands disposable as fiefs to the nobles or veterans. Seduced by the exemption from taxes, and advantages of every kind

pis, cxactoris ... a pastu et refcctione omnium accipitrum et falconum in terra ^leroensium," &c.

^** This is called in the charters " trinoda necessitas, generalis incomraoditas, communis labor." See above, p. 007.

*" " Qua arridente pace et serenitate temporum, plures in gente Northanhumbrorum, tam nobiles quam privati, se suosque liberos, depositis arrais, satagunt magis, accepta tonsura, monasterialibus ascribere votis, quara bellicis exercere studiis. Quas res quem sit habitura finem, posterior a:ta8 videhit." — Hist, V. 23.

"" See above, pp. 559-oG6. with which monastic property was privileged, many of the nobles had obtained from the kings and witan vast grants of land in order to found monasteries upon them. Sometimes foundations were actually made, but without any monastic or even Christian charter; the donors collected around them a handful of their own vassals, or of irregular monks who had been expelled from true cloisters; they then called themselves abbots, and lived, together with their wives and children, on the land extorted from the nation, with no care but that of their household and material interest. Sometimes when the grant was obtained it was made use of without any further thought of its pretended purpose, and no pretence of a monastery, even under the ludicrous conditions just described, was made. For this reason the Venerable Bede implored the king and bishops to proceed, with the aid of the national assemblies, to the complete abolition of all these fraudulent and scandalous grants.^^

Ten years after the death of Bede the second Council of Cloveshove ^ acknowledged the justice of the great monk's complaint, but without proposing any effectual remedy for the unfortunate state of affairs which he had pointed out. Repression '^^^^ council enjoined the bishops to visit the monasteries, " if indeed such a name can be given to houses which the tvrannv of avarice, to the scandal Cloveshove. ^f ^^^ Christian religion, retains in the hands of worldly persons, invested with them not by divine ordinance, but by an invention of human presumption." ^^ The object of these pastoral visits was to warn the inmates of the pretended communities of the risks run by their souls, and to j)rovide for the presence of priests in case of any deadly sickness. But nothing indicates that vigorous measures were taken against the odious abuses which produced those socalled monasteries. Ill-considered grants of public lands, to false monks, or, as was much more frequent, to powerful laymen, continued with impunity to the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, causing serious disturbances in the development of

®' The Codex Diplomaticus (Nq. 46) shows us how King Ina of Wessex took back the lands granted by Cissa to Abbot Hean and his sister the Abbess Cille — " Terram... reipublicEe restituit, nondum constructo monasterio in eo, nee uUo admodum oratorio erecto."

»* See above, p. 607.

®' " Monasteria, si tamen est fas ea ita nominare, quae teraporibus istis propter vim tyrannicas quasdam avaritiae ad religionis Christianae statura mullatenus immutari possent, id est a saecularibus non divins legis ordinatione, sed humanae adinventionis presumptione, utcumque tenentur." — Cap. 6. the population and the condition of free men, by which the Danish and Norman invasions were facilitated.^*

But the Council of Cloveshove had other abuses to repress besides those of secular usurpation. The illustrious Boniface, then nearly at the end of his glorious career, and whose vehement remonstrances with King Ethelbald and the primate of England had specially procured the convocation of the Council, did not content himself with stigmatizing as sacrilegious persons and homicides, the laymen, were they kings or earls, who called themselves abbots of these usurped monasteries.^^ He pointed out to the bishops their own failings, amongst others the national vice of drunkenness, from which even their episcopal dignity did not always protect the Anglo-Saxon bishops; ^"^ he also pointed out in the very cloisters themselves a culjDable luxury and ridiculous abundance of ornament in the vestments of the monks; and represented to them that such childish trifles might be an introduction to excesses much more grave, to bad company, to the abandonment of reading and prayer, and even to debauchery, and the loss of their souls.^"

In accordance with the advice of their illustrious countryman, the twelve bishops assembled at Cloveshove, in council with the King of Mercia and his nobles, forbade monks, and

®* At this period there scarcely remained perhaps an acre of folc-land that had not been changed into boc-land, under various pretexts. — Kemble, I. c.

'^ " Hie autem qui laicus homo vel imperator, vel rex, vel aliquis, praefectorum vel comitum sseculari potestate fultus, sibi per violentiam rapiat monasterium de potestate cpiscopi, vel abbatis, vel abbatissae, et incipiat ipsi vice abbatis regere et habere sub se monachos ct pecuniam possidere, quiB fuit Christi sanguine coniparata, talem hominem nominant antiqui patres raptorem ct sacrilegum ct horaicidam pauperum et lupum diabolum intrantem in ovile Christi et raaximo anathomatis vinculo damnandum ante tribunal Christi." — Epistola ad Citthbertum, p. 351, ed. Ilussey. No. 70, ed. Jafle.

96 «' Fertur quoque in parochiis vestris ei)rietatis malum nimis adsuetum esse, ut non solum episcopi quidam non prohibeant, sed etiam ipsi nimis bibentes inebrientur, ct alios porrectis poculis majoribus cogant ut inebrientur." — Ibid., p. 353.

*'' " Supervacuam et Deo odibilem vestimentorum superstitionem prohibere; quia ilia ornamenta vestium... latissimis clavis, vermium imaginibus clavata adventum Antichrist!... praicurrunt; illius calliditate, per ministros suos introducere intra claustra monasteriorum fornicationem ct luxuriam clavatorum juvcnum, et focda consortia, et ticdium lectioiiis et orationis, et perditionem animarum." I give in these two latter notes the complete text as given by Spelman in his Concilia, p. 259, for the end of this letter, from the word luxuriam, is omitted in the editions of Serrarius and Giles. No editor has yet satisfactorily explained what were the clavi and vermes, the presence of which la the costume of the monks so scandalized Boniface. especially nuns, to make any change in their dress, shoes, or headdress, which would assimilate their costume to that of the lay members of society.^^ The same Council forbade them to frequent the houses of secular persons, or to dwell in them; ^^ it commanded the abbots and abbesses to neglect no means of preserving in their communities, and the schools attached to them, the love of study and reading, as the best preservative against the vanities and lusts of the world,i*^ and to make of their monasteries an asylum for silence, study, prayer, and work.^^i It reproved and forbade the introduction of poets, minstrels, musicians, and clowns into the religious houses: the prolonged visits of secular persons, who were allowed to penetrate into and wander about the interior of the cloister; the prolonged and luxurious meals, mingled with buffooneries; ¹⁰² and especially that fatal leaning towards drunkenness, which led them not only themselves to drink to excess, but to force their lay companions to drink with them.^^^ The Council concludes this humbling enumeration of the evils which luxury and wealth had introduced into the cloister by a sort of treatise, equally marked by its eloquence and its good sense, against the false ideas which began to be general on the subject of alms, or, in other words, on the moral value of those gifts which constituted the daily increasing wealth of the monasteries. An echo of the generous protest of Bede in his letter to the Archbishop of York is to be found in it.^*^^ Alms, say the Fathers of the council, when joined to the appointed penance, help in obtaining from God a more prompt remission of sin, and bestowal of grace to prevent backsliding,' to those who are not great sinners, it

®^ " Ut vestibus consuetis, juxta formam priorum... deinceps utantur; nee imitentur saeculares in vestitu crurum per fasciolas, nee per eoeulas in cireumdatione capitis modo pallii la'icorum contra moreni Ecelesiffi." — Cap. 28.

»^ Cap. 29.

^^ "Utper familias suas lectionis studium indesinenter in plurimorum pectoribus versetur... coerceantur et exerceantur in scholis pueri dilectionem sacrae scientias." — Cap. 7.

*"^ " Ut sint juxta vocabulum nominis sui, honesta silentium, quietorum atque pro Deo laborantium habitaeula... orantium, legentium, Deumque laudantium." — Cap. 20.

102 << jjqj^ gj^j. ludicrarum artium reeeptaeula... poetarum, citharistarum, musicorura, scurrarura.... Non habeant sseeulares quique vagandi licentiam... per interiora monasterii domuncula." — Cap. 20.

^^'^ " Ut monasteriales sive ecclesiastici ebrietatis malum non sectentur.... Neque alios cogantintemperanterbibere.... Sint convivianequedeliciis vel scurrilitatibus mixta... et ut... potationibus ebriosorum more non serviant." — Cap. 2L

'"* See above, p. 665.

OF THE MONKS. 637

answers the purpose of insuring in heaven the reward due to their innocence and charity. But alms are not given in order that those who receive them may give themselves up to excess in eating and drinking-^*^-^ Nor can any alms which are given with the intention of purchasing greater license in the future be of any efficacy to redeem even the smallest of sins. Alms are a work of pity. He who has pity in his soul must do his alms at his own expense, and not by robbing his neighbor. To offer to God gifts stained with violence and cruelty, is to irritate instead of appeasing divine justice. For the wise man has said, '•' To give alms at the expense of the poor, is like killing the son in presence of his father."!^ Even to suppose that Divine justice is venal, is a means of provoking it to strike severely and promptly. The common saying, that certain persons give daily offerings to God in order that they may give themselves up to sin with impunity, is therefore a great mistake. Those who foolishly imagine that the celestial Judge will balance their gifts against their continued crimes are blind indeed. It will be of no use to them to give their goods to God, so long as they give themselves to the devil.^'^"

The Council insists at length upon the necessity of incessant preaching to all, that alms can never take the place of contrition, nor of the canonical penalties imposed for the expiation of sins. It energetically condemns those who hope to acquit themselves of their penances by the intervention of others who shall fast or sing psalms on their account—that is to say, the monks supported by their gifts. It is the flesh which has sinned which ought to be punished. To allow sinners to believe the contrary would be to ruin them by corrupt adulation. For if a man could redeem his faults by money, and satisfy the justice of God by the deeds of another, then justice would indeed be venal, and the rich would be saved more easily than the poor, in defiance of the

¹⁰³ " Non sit quoque eleemosyna illius ad hoc esurienti data, ut se ipsum comessationibus ebrietatibusque illicitis supra modum ingurgitet." — Cap. 26.

1U6 u Eleemosyna quae fit ex substantia pauperuui, quasi qui mactat filium in conspectu patris sui." — Eccl. xxxiv. 24.

107 u j^'^oj^ jj^j ijQg gjj^g dubio danda;, ut quaelibct vel minima saltern peccata eo licentius cuiquam agere liceat, quo vel ipse vel alius quilibet pro eo eleemosynas faciat.... Ne per hoc quod venalem Dei justitfani ponat, ab eadem non solum acrius, sed citius juxta merita istius judicetur. Non sint, ut gencralitcr dicatur, cleemosynaj ad hoc data;.... Frustra suas tantum eleemosynas et non intermixta ilagitia supernum pensare judieem caeco suo libitu volunt ct optant... sua I)eo dare videntur, sed se ipsos diabolo per flagitia dare non dubitantur." — Cap. 2G. express words of Scripture. Let no man deceive himself thus, for God deceives no man; and, as has been said by His Apostle, we shall all appear on the same level before the tribunal of Christ.ios

It is thus evident that the chiefs of the Anglo-Saxon Church, who all came from the monastic order, were the first to pro test against false interpretations and evil applications of the doctrine of alms. They protested at the same moment, and before the event, against the calumnies and exaggerations heaped by an unjust and ungrateful posterity upon the avarice and greed of ecclesiastical corporations and the hypocrisies and evil influence of the cloister.

But the abuses which their watchful and paternal authority thus endeavored to assail and repress, were without one single exception to be attributed to the relaxation of rule which too much and too sudden wealth had introduced into the monasteries.

And all was not yet said. For this wealth brought with it other dangers besides that of internal laxity. It awakened universal covetousness. Sometimes the natural heirs of the lawful abbot of a monastery came after his death and violently seized the monastic lands, under pretence that the abbey had been the property of the deceased, and that they had a right to its inheritance, on the sole condition of supporting the monks-i*^^ Sometimes kings and princes installed themselves in a great monastery as in a place of rest and recreation, with all their surroundings, their train of officials, huntsmen, footmen, and grooms, who, along with horses, hawks, and dogs, had to be lodged, fed, and provided with vehicles, as is proved by the charters, which, while exempting certain monasteries from this charge, prove how habitual and burdensome it had become.^i'^ Again there were other kings still more exacting and formidable, who revoked the

108 "Ipsa illius caro quse illicita ac nefanda contraxit desideria, ipsani hie in prsesenti punire juxta modum reatus sui debet.... De hoc prolixius ideo disputandura est, quia nuper quidam dives, petens reconciliationem pro magno suo facinore... quod superni judicis quotidie justitiam inter se quasi venalera statuere.... Antequam plures vestra errabunda adulatione iniplicantur et deducantur ad perniciem." — Cap. 27.

i*^' Something of a similar character has been seen in the Irish monasteries of the family of St. Columbkill, where there were two lines of abbots, the one secular and hereditary, the other ecclesiastical and according to the rule. See p. 119.

'"^ "Pastus regum et principum, duciim et prasfectorum, exactorum, equorum et falconum, accipitrum et canum... et omnes diflScultates regalis vel saecularis servitii."— Codex Diplom., n. 288. gifts made by their predecessors, and reclaimed the lands given by them; setting forth their pretensions and the counter-plea of the monks before the Witenagemot, the decisions of which were not always in conformity with the rights of the weak. The nobles and great personages, too, often followed the example of the kings — they reclaimed the lands given to the monasteries by their fathers, or seized upon others which lay at hand, leaving traces of their depredations in the many acts which enforce restitution more or less tardy, but at the same time proving that violence and rapacity had too often the advantage over the pious munificence of former benefactors.

Sometimes the prelates themselves abused their authority by making over to their relatives a portion of the conventual patrimony. In short, the local and intestinal wars which were so frequent at this period Avere waged specially at the expense of the monastic lands,ii^ which were always the best cultivated and the most populous, and consequently offered a richer and more attractive prey to the spoiler. This fact explains the singular fluctuations of prosperity to which the monasteries were subject, though their perseverance, their laborious and economical system, their paternal care of the agricultural population, were almost always sufficient to restore their impaired fortunes. The twice-repeated accusation of St. Boniface, when, in his letters to King Ethelbald and the Archbishop of Canterbury, he distinguishes England as the country in which the monks were subjected to the harshest bondage, on account of the exactions and forced labor required from them by the royal officials for public buildings, is much less comprehensible. He speaks of these oppressions as of a novelty unknown under the ancient kings, and in the other countries of Christendom; no trace of them is to be found in contemporary documents; but the evidence of the great Boniface, so attentive an observer of everything that concerned the Church in his native country, is too grave to be set altogether aside.^^-

"' All these causes of the ruin or deterioration of monastic property are well explained by Lingard, Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 22G and 2o3-2o(J.

'"* '• Dicitur quod pnul'ecti et comites tui majorem violentiani et servitutem monachis et sacerdotibus irrogent, quam caHeri ante Christian! reges focissent." — Epist. ad EthtlbaJdum, No. 59. " l)e violenta quoque monachorura servitutc, opcribus et tcdifioiis rcgalibus, qu?e in toto mundo Christianorum non auditur facta, nisi tantum in genere Angloruni: quod sacerdotibus Dei non tacendum nee consentiendum est, quod inauditum malum est prajteritis seculis." Epist. ad Cuthbertum, No. 70, ed. Jaffe.

Property has been in England, as elsewhere, the condition and guarantee of freedom for the Church as well as for corporations and individuals. But the burdens, the abuses, the excesses, the privileges which property brings with it, have been in England more than anywhere else, and at all periods, the great danger of the Church, and it is upon this rock that the monastic ark has perished, drawing with it in its shipwreck the whole Catholic Church of England. In this lies a terrible mystery, a problem of which our fathers did not sufficiently understand the gravity and difficulty. To solve it would have demanded from the heads of the Church, and especially of the religious orders, an amount of discernment, moderation, and prudence, easier to dream of than to find. But the reaction which raised up the holy founders of mendicant orders, and which always burns in some souls, enamoured of the primitive but transitory simplicity of the great cenobitical foundations, is but too easily imaginable. " My brethren," said the greatest monk of our century, preaching at the inauguration of one of his new establishments — "my brethren, if I knew that our house would grow rich, even by your savings, I should rise to-night and set fire to it, at its four corners."

V.

Fatal wealth! let us repeat with this great man— fatal wealth, the daughter of charity, of faith, of a generous and spontaneous virtue, but the mother of covetousness, envy, robbery, and ruin! Scarcely a century had run since the modest and sober beginning of the Church and monastic order in England — and already the honorable and undisputed voices of saints, such as Boniface and Bede, are raised to indicate the danger, though without perceiving its cause. The leprosy was already there. In the fulness of youth, at the height of health, the germ of mortality appeared. The day was to come when the poisonous fruit should be gathered by greedy and bloody hands. The day was to come when a monster, who resembled at once Caligula and Heliogabalus, a Henry VIII., with his cowardly courtiers and debased people, should arm himself with the pretext of the exorbitant wealth of religious corporations in order to annihilate, and drown in blood and slavery, the work of Augustin, Wilfrid, and Bede.

I think I have a right to despise the insinuations of those who have dared to accuse me of desiring to absolve or mitigate the crime of those sacrilegious bandits — those cowardly spoilers who, in England as in all the rest of Europe, have made a prey of the patrimony of the Church. But who will not regret with me that the Church, which alone had the necessary discernment and authority, should not herself have set limits, at a suitable moment, to the unlimited increase of wealth in the monastic corporations? The increase was lawful, natural, often even involuntary, but dangerous and exorbitant. The Church could and ought to have understood this. The Church, with her supernatural insight, her divine authority, her maternal omnipotence, could and ought to have forestalled the danger by warning prohibitions, by a just division of the superfluities of great orders and rich communities, either to the advantage of the poor, of public beneficence, of the inferior and neglected clergy, or any other social service or necessity.

No man can say from what evils and crimes the world might have been spared if the Church, which was destined to be the chief victim, had been beforehand with the spoilers had baffled their hatred and disarmed their treachery by taking from them this specious pretext; arresting with a prudent and steady hand the rising tide of ecclesiastical wealth, and saying, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." ^^^

Disinterestedness is, above all others, the virtue of a priest; voluntary poverty has always been the unfailing source of the influence and power of monks. In this they have always been able — they will always be able— torenew and revive their strength. It Avas this thought that comforted the great soul of Mabillon, the most illustrious of modern Benedictines, in those generous lamentations which dropped from his pen after the narrative of the conquest of England by the monks, and which may still be applied to so many other Catholic countries which the scythe of Vandalism had not yet assailed in his day: —

" Ah! if Gregory or Augustin could but live again, and see these lands to-day! What a sad glance would they throw upon the fruits of their wasted labors, the scattered stones of the sanctuary, the house of prayer changed into the abode of desolation! It is not that we weep the lost wealth of the Church; it is not our sacked and overthrown

"^ Job xxxviii. 11.

monasteries that the Benedictines regret. No; but we groan over the fate of our brethren, rent from the bosom of the Catholic Church and rooted in heresy. God grant that we might buy their return by the price of all that might once have been ours. What would not the Church give, what would not our order sacrifice, to gain the souls of our brethren, and enrich ourselves in the poverty of Christ! " ^i"* It was from the Benedictine ranks, purified by toil and a frugal life, or from the bosom of other orders given by God to the Church to defend and console her, that the new missionaries came who, in the age of Mabillon, returned upon English soil, a thousand years after the companions of Augustin and the disciples of Columba. Far from being received, as their predecessors had been by the Anglo-Saxon pagans, with magnanimous and intelligent tolerance, they had nothing to expect of the Protestant English but martyrdom, often preceded by the horrors of a lengthened captivity, and by tortures unknown to savages. Nevertheless, daily some monk crossed the sea, and landed disguised and by night upon the soil where Augustin and the monks of Mont Coelius had planted in broad day the cross of Jesus Christ, now banished and denied by Christian England. Not far from the old wasted and confiscated monasteries, he began, at the risk of his life, the clandestine practice of that worship which the envoys of Gregory the Great had openly celebrated; he distributed the bread of life and truth to some sheep of the little flock which had survived persecutions more atrocious and prolonged than those of Decius or Diocletian, to keep and transmit to our free and happier days the yet warm ashes of the truth. They came from France, they came from Belgium, Italy, and even from Spain, to gather these bloody laurels, striving for them with exiles of the English race. They were A Spanish discovered, questioned, tortured, and then murtinemar- dcred, with all the refinements of infernal cruelty, tyred by Among many others, let us name a Spaniard, George

"^ " Ah! si modo in illas terras redivivi venirent Gregorius et Augustinus! quibus oculis intuerentur laborum suorum fructus dissipates, disperses lapides sanctuarii, et domos orationis factas domos desolationis! Neque vero lugemus amissas illic Ecclesiae amplissimas opes... neque nos Benedictini jam dolemus monasteria nostra direpta et eversa; sed ingemiscimus, quod fratres nostros a gremio Ecclesiae Catholicaj avulsos et in scliismate obfirmatos videanius. Utinam cessione omnium rerum, olim nostrarum, eos ad nos redituros coraparare nobis liceret! Quidni Ecclesia, quidni ordo noster ultro cederet bonis, olim suis, ad lucrandos fratres, cum Christus propter nos egenus factus sit, ut uos ejus inopia ditaremur! " — Ann, Bened., 1. ix. c. 44.

Gervaise, who, captured and questioned by the theEn^- judges of Mary Stuart's miserable son upon his ^^^^ ^^ ^'^' profession, answered, " I am a Benedictine monk, of that order which of old converted England to the Christian faith." He renewed this profession at the foot of the gibbet on which he was hung, and from which he was taken down before he had yielded his last breath that his side might be opened, his heart torn out, and his feet cut off, in order to teach foreign monks who should venture to intrude on English soil, what sufferings should prevent their return to their native country .^^^ " But," says the Spanish Benedictine who has added this tale to the glorious annals of his order, " what heart among us does not feel itself inspired by this example

to suffer for Christ, and to repeat the sacred text, ' How

beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who carry good tidings, who publish peace.' Besides," continues the Castilian annalist, •'' if there is any undertaking which belongs above others to the order of St. Benedict, it is the mission to England, for our fathers conquered that island to Christ by their preaching and by their blood. They possessed there a crowd of monasteries, illustrious among the most illustrious in Europe. When generals and captains in arms desire to animate their soldiers for the battle, they remind them of their past exploits, of their victories, of the glory of their nation, the safety and honor of their wives and children. It seems to me that our father Benedict, from the height of heaven, speaks thus to his monks. He reminds them that England was brought within the pale of the Church by St. Gregory and the monk-apostles of that island. He commands the monks of all his congregations to return there for the honor of religion, that the faith planted by the hands of his sons may not be brought to nothing; not to forget how many souls sigh after religious life; and to carry help to our mother, the holy Church, so cruelly persecuted by heresy." ^^^

But let us turn our saddened eyes away from that terrible future, so different, and still so distant, from the time of which we have just spoken. Notwithstanding the dangers

"^ " Como amena(;ando a los monges de Espana que no passen a aquella isla; por que ellos padeceran los mismos tormentos y no tendran pies para bolver a su tierra." — Yepes, Coronica General de S. Benito, 1G09, vol. i.

p. 448.

"« Yepes, I. c.

644 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF THE MONKS.

and abuses which, in the interests of truth, must be acknowledged to have existed from the beginning of monastic missions, long centuries of faith and fervor, of union with the Roman Church and Catholic Christendom, succeeded the beautiful beginning of converted England. Abundant harvests were produced during these centuries in the furrows ploughed by the disciples of Augustin and Bede. Before it settled into the great nation which the world admires and envies, furnished with the noblest and wisest institutions that men have ever known, with a literature rich in unrivalled genius, and power greater than that of ancient Rome, England had to become the great base of operation for the spiritual conquests of the Papacy, the great centre of Christian missions. By her the Roman Church moved, enlightened, and subdued the centre and north of Europe; and it was by her means that the German and Scandinavian peoples, still plunged in the darkness of heathenism, were brought into the Christian faith.

The first-fruits of the monastic seed sown by the hand of the great monk Gregory in the bosom of the Anglo-Saxon race, was the great apostle and martyr Winifred, whose Latin name, Bonifacius, the benefactor, so exactly expressed his glorious career. It was he who was chosen by God to carry the light of truth, the flame of love, the spirit of martyrdom, into the cradle of his ancestors, the depths of those German forests, happily impenetrable by the enslaved Romans, from whence came the freedom, thought, and life of Catholic nations, and with these the Christian civilization of two worlds. •