Social and Political Influence of the Monks Among the Anglo-Saxons (part 1 of 3)

' Record we too, with just and faithful pen,

That many hooded cenobites there are,
Who in their private cells have yet a care
Of public quiet; unambitious Men,

Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken;

Whose fervent exhortations from afar
Move Princes to their duty, peace or war;
And oft-times in the most forbidding den
Of solitude, with love of science strong,

How patiently the yoke of thought they bear..,. By such examples moved to unbought pains

The people work like congregated bees;
Eager to build the quiet fortresses,
Where piety, as they believe, obtains

From heaven a general blessing; timely rains

And sunshine; prosperous enterprise, and peace and equity.

WORDSWORTH.

The conversion and religious organization of England entirely the work of monks. — Their patience and perseverance; letter of Bishop Daniel to the missionary Boniface; no violence; mildness and toleration. — Their influence over the nature they had converted; evil survives, but the good outweighs it. — Alliance between the Church and secular society, without the exclusive preponderance of either. — These apostolic monks were no longer fathers of the desert, but the creators of a Church and nation. —Towns grow up around the great communities. — The monasteries give rise to cathedrals and parishes. — Propagation of the Benedictine order. —Protection assured to the monastic order by the Councils of Beccancelde and Cloveshove. — Eeligious instruction in the national tongue. — Musical liturgy. — Crosses in the open air. — Services rendered to education by monasteries and monastic bishops. — St. John of Beverley.— Fondness of the Anglo-Saxon students for horsemanship. — Services rendered to agriculture. — Position of the monks as landlords. — Close alliance between the monastic order and the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. — Intervention in political matters. — Their place in the national councils. — Authority, composition, and powers of these councils. — The distinction between the temporal and spiritual is not forgotten. — Influence of monks in these assemblies, and through them on laws and manners. —They contribute to the formation of that national unity which, since the ninth century, has never been disturbed. — Their devotion to the cause of the poor: expiation for the sins of the rich gives rise to public almsgiving. — Their zeal for the liberation of slaves; contest between an archbishop and an abbot for a young captive. — The rights of man as well as those of God vindicated by the monks throughout the history of their conquest of England. — Religion is too often left defenceless, but her ministers respect honor and the freedom of thought in regard to the things of God. — The monastic missionaries perfect the national character without changing it; the spirit of the Saxons still lives in modern England; modern liberty, self-government, and parliamentary rule are rooted in the Saxon times. — Conformity of monastic rules with the tone of Anglo-Saxon institutions. — Splendor and prodigality of the aristocracy. — Motives of their gifts. — Abuse of their grants of land. — Folc-land and hoc-land. — Monastic possessions exempt from military service and from taxes. — Public danger remarked by Bede. — Repression of many abuses by the Council of Cloveshove; it decrees against monastic luxury and wealth, and against the false ideas prevalent as to almsgiving. — The monastic riches arising from the munificence of kings and nobles soon excite envy; fluctuations and oppressions noticed by St. Boniface; necessity of a limit which might be imposed by the Church herself on the increase of monastic possessions. — Their value forms a pretext for spoliation and heresy. — Lacordaire and Mabillon. —A Spanish Benedictine martyred in 1C08. — Before reaching this point England becomes the home of Christian propagandism and the instructress of the Teutonic races. — At the death of Bede, Boniface is already the apostle of Germany.

I.

59r. A CENTURY and a half passed between the establishment of St. Augustin at Canterbury and the final erection of a second metropolitan see at York — between the first written laws of the first Christian king of Kent, and those decrees of the Council of Cloveshove which established a sort of confederation among the Anglo-Saxon bishops, and at the same time sanctioned and made general ^ the parochial system, which is still the foundation of temporal and spiritual life in the country districts of England.^

^* " Ut una fit omnium concordia ... in sermone, in opere, in judicio, sine cujusquam adulatione persons.... Ut licet sedibus sint divisi per diversa loca, tamen nientibus conjuncti in uno spiritu Deo deserviant." — Cap.

2. For all the details of this famous council, which was held in the presence of the Mercian King Ethelbald, the friend of the holy monk Guthlac, see the excellent narrative of Lingard, Antiquities, vol. i. p. 124, and Note G.

^ Cap. 9, 10, 14. Cf. Le Play, La Rcforme Sociale deduite de V Observation Comparee des Peuples Europeens, t. ii. cli. 7, § 55.

During this interval all the inhabitants of Great Britain had become Christian; and all Britons and Saxons had acknowledged the supremacy of the Holy See, substituting everywhere the observances of Rome in place of the ancient customs of Celtic Christianity.

This great victory was the exclusive work of the »v-.^ril-c, version and monks.

With no human aid— with at the most the protecting sympathy of a woman ^ to help them — they entered all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, one by one, as missionaries, and remained there as bishops, as pastors, as permanent preachers. Little by little they thus conquered the British soil, and covered it with their establishments. Their work had been slow and difficult. Stormy incidents and melancholy changes had not been wanting in it. Sons did not always allow themselves to be led by the example of their fathers, nor nations by that of their neighbors. Let us recall the first defection of the Jutes in Kent immediately after the death of Ethelbert, the double apostasy of the Saxons of the East, the rage of the old British Christians against the Teutonic converts, the destruction by fire and sword of the new-born Christianity in Xorthumbria, the horrible ravages of the heathen Penda among all his Christian neighbors!

All these difficulties and trials they met only with an unconquerable perseverance and gentleness. A hundred and fifty years after the arrival of Augustin, a holy abbot, friend of St. Aldhelm, and, like him, trained at Malmesbury, revealed the secret of their power to his illustrious countryman St. Boniface, who was then occupied in carrying the light of the Gospel from England to Germany. " To overcome," he said, "the obstinacy of heathen savages — to fertilize the stony and barren soil of their hearts— pains must be taken not to insult or irritate them, but to set our doctrines before them with unfailing moderation and gentleness, so as to make them blush at their foolish superstitions without exasperating them." ^*

Thus armed the monks finally triumphed everywhere; and everywhere, with the free consent of

' Bertha the Merovingian in Kent; her daughter Ethelburga in Northumbria; the heathen bride of the holj' King Oswald in Wessex; and the Christian bride of the son of Penda in Mercia.

• "Non quasi insultando vel irritando eos, sed placide ac magna objicere moderatione debes." — Epist. 15 inter Bonifacianas, ed. Jaffe. the people, proved by the public deliberations of the national assemblies of each kingdom, where each }iad the freedom of giving an answer in his turn.^ Let us repeat, to the immortal glory of the monastic conquerors of England, that neither they, their disciples, nor their protectors, used violence or persecution for the aid of evangelical truth.'' The faith as preached by the monks was nowhere enforced by a master; nowhere was it admitted without examination and discussion; noAvhere was it propagated or defended among our insular Saxons by the sanguinary means used by Charlemagne among the Saxons on the other side of the Rhine.

At a later period, it is true, in conformity with the general spirit of Christian nations, and in proportion as the ties between religion and society became closer, penal legislation often transformed itself into a helper of Christian morality and ecclesiastical discipline. The assemblies in which bishops and abbots had a place beside kings and landowners, often decreed severe or shameful penalties for apostasy,'^ for the violation of Sunday rest or the fasts of Lent,^ and especially for drunkenness and incontinence, which were the most common vices among the Anglo-Saxons. But these penalties never went the length of torture or bloodshed, as often happened where the Byzantine laws had infected Catholic nations with its poison. Up to the present moment, thanks to God, in these distant centuries, in the midst of gross immorality, beside scandals which Ave have not attempted to conceal or deny, we have not met with one single bloody or cruel act which can be attributed to any Anglo-Saxon bishop, priest, or monk. Faithful to the precepts and example of their first and glorious master St. Gregory the Great, they gained hearts and governed souls by the irresistible might of kindness and though not above the reach of human infirmity, remained long strangers and superior to the bitterness, covetousness, and violence which are too often to be met with in the his-

^ "Habitocum sapientibus consilio, sciscitabatur singillatim ab omnibus, qualis sibi doctrina haec... videretur.... Cateri majores natu ac regis consiliarii." — Bede, ii. 13.

^ We have quoted the only exception to this rule in Sussex, p. 396. ^ The most severe penalty pronounced against apostasy was that of healsfang, which interpreters translate as stocks or pillory — a penalty, however, which might be evaded by the contributions of friends. — Thorpe, i. 45 LiNGARD, i. 112.

^** Bede, iii. 8. tory of the Church, and which she has always had to pay for by a loss of souls.

Such apostles found neophytes worthy of them. " No nation," says with justice Edmund Burke, the most illustrious of their descendants, " has embraced Christianity with more fervor and simplicity than the Anglo-Saxons."^ The permanent and generous struggle, which shows itself everywhere from the moment of their conversion, between their new principles and their old instincts, their savage traditions of murder, vengeance, and debauchery, demonstrate at once the sincerity of their faith and the merit of their submission. For a long time they alternate between atrocious crimes and unbounded penances, between audacious rapine and a giving up of all earthly goods, between odious outrages upon modesty and vows of perpetual chastity. They were capable of every sin to satisf)" their passions, and were not less capable of every sacrifice to expiate their excesses. But in the long run, and sometimes very speedily, goodness carried the day, and, except for some terrible backslidings which were inevitable, remained master of th-e field, thanks to the generous and unwearied efforts of the monastic apostles. Wherever the hand, the words, the spirit of the monk, bishop, or missionary can reach, a uniform tendency is evident, both in morals and laws, in word and deed, towards justice, humanity, the love of goodness, and neighborly charity; subduing the native fierceness of their countrymen; struggling against the most popular vices and excesses; introducing intellectual culture; creating and maintaining social peace from religious motives. The great mission which devolved upon the Church after the ruin of the Empire, that of restraining" and ennobling the barbarians, of purifying and transforming their souls, was never more completely fulfilled.

And perhaps also the alliance between the two societies temporal and spiritual, between Church and State, was never more completely and happily realized. It was the climax of this union, at least in England, a moment which had its stains and miseries like everything here below, but which was free on both sides from permanent and systematic excesses. No king of the period attempted to govern or use the Church for his own advantage; no pontiff, in these exclusively monastic times, claimed that deceitful ascendency which precedes or produces decadence and rebellion.

" BuKKE, Essay towards an Abridgment of English Ilisionj, c. iii.

Certainly the Anglo-Saxon monks, instruments of a revolu- Theywere ^'°^ SO fruitful, and Creators of an organization so brilliant and lasting, had nothing, except their name, their ccHbate condition, their faith in Jesus Christ ^ud His Church, in common with the Fathers of the desert, or even with the rare and austere companions of St. Benedict. Far from flying the company of other Christians, they impersonated or created Christian society around them. Far from thinking of their own salvation alone, they labored without intermission, first for the salvation of infidels, and afterwards for the maintenance of faith and morality in the new Christian communities formed by their instructions. Far from confining themselves to prayer or manual labor, they cultivated and extended with enthusiasm all the knowledge and literature possessed by the world in their days. The distant places to which they had been first led by a love of solitude changed rapidly, and as if by force of circumstances, into cathedrals, cities, towns, or rural colonies, and served as centres, schools, libraries, workshops, and citadels to the scarcely converted families, parties, and tribes. Around the monastic cathedrals and the principal communities, towns which are still in existence formed rapidly, and municipal liberties soon dawned into life among them, the vital guarantees of which still exist along with the very names of the magistrates charged with their defence and maintenance.!*^

All the bishops of the Heptarchy, as our narrative must The men ''^^*^ proved, issued from monasteries; the clergy of the Cathedrals were exclusively monks who lived in community with their diocesan prelate at their ofSshe's. ^^^^- ^'^^' ^ century at least they held the place of the secular or parochial clergy. The monasteries were centres from which missionaries went forth to the rural stations to baptize, preach, and celebrate all the ceremonies of worship, and into which they returned to revive themselves by study and prayer. Rural parishes were formed g.jj but slowly under the influence of Archbishop Theodore in the south, and of archbishop Egbert and Bede in the north. The monasteries thus long supplied in Christian England the place not only of cathedrals but of parish churches. Most of the cathedrals preserved their monastic character until long after the Norman Con-

"* Kemble, vol. ii. pp. 330, 338.

quest. The decrees of the council of Cloveshove, in 747, are the first authentic documents which treat as a general fact the distribution of lay lands into districts administered by priests under the control of bishops, in distinction from churches situated in the lands belonging to the monasteries and served by priests under the control of their abbots. The latter churches, in which the priest was always assisted by a deacon and several clerks, were sometimes called monasteriuncula.

When parishes were thus organized, most of the priests placed at the head of the new divisions of the country were naturally brought from the monasteries.^^ All was to make or to make anew in that great work, for it must be repeated that every trace of ancient British Christianity had disappeared before the Saxons. Except at Glastonbury, which had been at all times one of the great centres of Celtic devotion,i2in the little Roman church at Canterbury, where Queen Bertha was wont to pray,^-^ and at Evesham where the ruins of a little British church were found in the thicket which had to be cleared away for the foundation of the newabbey,i* no vestige of the Christianity of the Britons or Romans is to be found in the history of the conquest of England by the monks.

This extension of their office and influence had not been attained in any other Christian nation; but it did not banish from the mind of the Anglo-Saxon monks the necessity of maintaining and guaranteeing the fundamental conditions of their institution. The rule of St. Benedict, which had been brought into England along with the Gospel by the first envoys of the Benedictine pope, St. Gregor}'- the Great, had followed step by step the progress of evangelization and Roman supremacy, and finally supplanted all the monastic regulations of Celtic countries or times. From Wilfrid to Bede, all the popular saints, Cuthbert, Egwin, Benedict Biscop, Botulph, and Aldhelm, distinguished themselves by their zeal for the Benedictine rule,, although giving to it slight modifications and additions such as suited the country and age. There existed, however, na hierarchical connection among the different monasteries^ no

" Lingard {Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, vol. i. p. 457) perfectly explains all that concerns the organization of the parochial clergj. See what has been said above, p. 351.

'2 See p. G57. " See p. 155. " See p. 4.30,

51*

GOG SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE

chapter general, and, except the tie formed by Wilfrid between the nine or ten houses founded by himself,^^ no general congregation of different communities, such as has been so general since. The only link between ithe continually increasing monasteries which covered the British soil was in the code, already a thing of antiquity, which had come from Rome with the Christian faith, and which the second council of Cloveshove names simply the Rule, as if it had become the sole rule recognized and put in practice.^'^

Most of the councils held in England from the The monas-. ^ i ^ i ^

end 01 the seventh century gave a place to monastic interests in their decrees which was in keeping councils \Tf[\)^ the preponderance of monastic prelates in the assemblies where these decrees were discussed or promulgated. Let us note the council of Beccancelde,^' called, in ^^^' ^^ Withred, King of Kent, the fifth descendant of Ethelbert, which was presided over by Archbishop Brithwald, and at which the learned Grecian, Tobie, Bishop of Rochester, many abbots, priests, lords, and Jive abbesses, were present.^^

The king summed up the deliberations of the assembly. "I desire," said he, " that the monasteries and churches which have been given or bequeathed for the glory of God, in the time of the faithful kings, my relatives and predecessors, may remain dedicated to Him forever. I, Withred, earthly king, moved by the celestial King, and inspired by the love of justice, have learned from our ancestors that no layman has a right to take possession of any church whatsoever, nor of anything that belongs to that church. For this reason we interdict all kings, our successors, all eorls, or other laymen, from exercising authority over churches or their possessions which I and my predecessors have given as a perpetual inheritance to Christ, to the Holy Virgin, and to the apostles. When an abbot or abbess dies, let notice be given to the archbishop, and let his successor be chosen only after the purity of his life has been acknowledged by the bishop. It

'' See p. 447.

'« Cap. 24. Cf. Mabili.on, prsef. in ¹ sacul., § 87.

'^ This is supposed to be Beckenham, or, according to Hook, Bapcliild, near Sittingbourne.

'** " Cffiteris abbatibus, abbatissis, presbyteris, diaconibus, ducibus, satrapis, in unum glonieratis; pariter tractantes, anxie examinantes de statu ecclesiarum Dei vel raonasteriorum intra Cantiam."— Prooem. ms. Cantuar., ap. CoLETTi Concil, vol. viii. p. 77. We will speak of these abbesses further on. is the king's duty to choose the eorls and ealdormen. the sheriffs and judges; but it is the office of the archbishop to rule the church of God, to elect and constitute bishops, abbots, abbesses, priests and deacons, and to confirm them by his good example." ^^

Another decree of the same council exempts the monasteries of Kent from all secular bondage, and notably from maintaining the king and lords during their journeys, which is an evidence that monastic hospitality, always so generous and spontaneous, had been cruelly abused by the greed and rapacity of powerful laymen.20 Three years" after, in a new assembly held at Berkhampstead, presided hampYtead, over by the same king and archbishop, and entitled '^'^'' a council, though many warriors occupied seats in it along with the clergy, the freedom of the Church was again guaranteed along with that of its jurisdiction, its property, and Its prayers.2' The decrees of these councils held in the kingdom of Kent, under the presidency of the metropolitan, were soon adopted over all England. They Avere solemnly confirmed at the first council of Cloves- ciovtlove hove in 742 by Ethelbald, Kihg of the Mercians, '*" who was then the most powerful prince of the Heptarchy, and who, from his youthful friendship with the hermit Guthlac, had always been well disposed towards the monks.22 It

'" '' 70I0 ut omnes monasteria et ecclesias quae fuerint datae et legatse Dei in glonara, regum fidelium mcorum prasdecessorum diebus... ita supersint Dei in lionorem et firmiter remaneant in sscula sfficuloruni. Cum ego Wihtrcdus, terrestris rex, a coelesti Rege incitatus et spiritu justitia; acceiisus, a nostris avis illud didicerim quod nullus laicus jure debet seipsum immitere in quamvis ecclesiani." — Chron. Saxon., ed. Gibson, p. 48. Neither Bede nor Malmesbury mentions this council. Spelman, however, has found its decrees in five different MSS. The double report of these decrees given after his account in Coletti, vol. viii. p. 77, is much longer than that of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but contains no essential addition.

*° " Ex hac die donamus ecclesiis regni nostri liberas esse perpetua libertate ab omnibus difficultatibus secularis servitutis a pastu regis, principum, comituni... ab omni debito vel pulsione regalium tributorum. ut possint, pro nobis Deo omnipotenti hostias dignas offerre, nostraque peccata abluere immaculatis numeribus... nisi sua spontanea voluntate, ex largitate beneficiorum quid fiicere velint." — Concilia, vol. viii. pp. 78, 80.

"Libera sit ecclesia, fruaturque suis judiciis, et redditibus seu pensionibus. Pro rege preces fiant, mandatisque ejus, non cogente necessitate, sed ex sponte obediunto." — Concil., vol. viii. p. 99. This Latin is a much more recent translation of the Saxon text of the twenty-eight articles intituled Judicia (Dooms) of Withred.

" ''Studiose requirentes qualiter in primordio nascentis ecclesia; hie in Anglia jubcbatur haberi honor coenobiorum secundum normam a^quitatis... tandem pervenit ad nianus libertas ecclesiarum et institutio Withredi regis de electione et auctoritate ccenobioruni in regno Cantiaj." — Concil., was at the same time decided that the exemption from all contributions to the public treasury granted to the monks did not extend to the taxes levied for the three principal necessities of the time {trinoda necessitas), the preservation of roads and bridges (brycghote), of national fortresses (burghbote), and of military expeditions (fyrd).

The second council of Clove shove — which was the most important of the Anglo-Saxon assemblies of the eighth century,23 and was called in consequence of a celebrated letter from St. Boniface to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and specially because of the severe orders of Pope Zacharius —added new guarantees and also new obligations to the already important mission of the monks, taking effectual measures against the abuses and oppressions which had been pointed out almost at the same moment by Boniface in his letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by Bede to the Archbishop of York.

11.

Reiio-ious ^^ ^^ then to the monks scattered as missionaries ia«fr"°" ^^^ preachers over the country, or united in the national numerous Communities of episcopal cities and other anguage. gJ.g£^^ monastic Centres, that must be in justice attributed the initiation of the Anglo-Saxons into the truths of religion as well as into the consoling and readily-adopted observances of Catholic worship. They were expressly commanded to teach and explain to their flocks, in the vernacular tongue, the Decalogue, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the sacred words which were used in the celebration of mass and the administration of baptism; to expound to them every Sunday, in English, the epistle and gospel of the day, and to preach, or, instead of preaching, to read them something useful to their souls.^*

The zeal of the Angle-Saxon kings ^^ and people for reli-

vol. viii. p. 267. Cloveshove or Cliffshoo, where these famous councils were held, is placed by the best authorities at Cliff, near Rochester, in the part of Kent between the Thames and Medway. Others suppose that these councils were held at Abingdon or Tewkesbury, which was then one of the great abbeys of Gloucestershire.

^^ See above, p. 600, note L

^* " Ut symbolum fidei ac dominicam orationem, sed et sacrosancta quoque verba quae in missae celebratione et officio baptismi soleraniter dicuntur, interpretari atque exponere posse propria lingua qui nesciant, discant." —Concil. Clovesh., can. 16. Cf. Thokpe, op. cit., p. 159, and Lingard, Antiquities, vol. i. p. 167. ²⁵ ggg p_ 285.

OF THE MONKS, 609

gious instruction in their own language has been already pointed out. From this spring those homilies in Anglo-Saxon which are so often to be met with among the manuscripts in our libraries, and which are by several centuries of an earlier date than the earliest religious documents of any other modern language. Thence also came those translations of Holy Scripture which abounded in the cloisters from the seventh century, and which probably were circulated outside their boundaries,— translations ascribed by certain historians to the pens of the most illustrious monks — to Aldhelm and the Venerable Bede, who are said to have completely translated, the one the Psalter, and the other the Old and New Testaments.2^^

The Sunday rest, still more scrupulously observed in England than in any other Christian country, was, from the beginning of the monastic mission, the object of special precautions. The Penitentiary of Theodore records the most minute regulations for preserving laborers, vine-dressers, and gardeners, as well as needle-women, spinners, and washerwomen, from any infringement of that essential guarantee of freedom for both body and soul.27

The solemn beauty of the worship celebrated in the monastic churches was increased by the liturgical uniformity in accordance with Roman rites which had been everywhere substituted for the Celtic, and were formally decreed by the council of Cloveshove.28 And it must have had a still greater effect upon the people, from the gradual introduction of organs, the powerful melody of which our Aldhelm had already celebrated.29 The first mention of them in England is connected with the abbey of Malmesbury, which, being situated

^* Lappenberg, vol. i. p. 197.

" " Nee viri ruralia opera exerceant, ncc in vinea colcnda, nee in campos arando, nietundo, vcl fcenum seeando, vel ssepem poncndo.... Nee in liorto laborent, nee ad placita conveniant, nee venationes exerceant. Item feminaj opera textilia non faeiant, nee abluant vestimenta, nee consuant nee lanam earpere, nee linum batere (sic), nee vestimenta lavare, nee verveees tondere.... Et ad missarum solemnia ad eeclesias undique eonveniant, et laudent Deum pro omnibus bonis, quae nobis in ilia die fecit." —C. 38, § 8.

^® " Ut eamdcm monasterialis psalmodiaj puritatem ubique sectentur, nihilque quod communis usus non admittit, jjrKsumant cantare aut legere, sed tantum quod ex sacrarum scripturarum auctoritate deseendit, et quod Romanae Ecelesiaj consuetudo permittit." — Can. 15.

*' " Maxima millenis auscultans organa flabris,

Mulccat auditum ventosis foUibus iste,

Quamlibet auratis fulgescant eaetera capsis."

— De Laudibus Virginum, ed. Giles, p. 138^ not far from Cambria, and founded by a Celt, might offer a new attraction by means of that touching and majestic harmony to the essentially musical Welsh.^^ The ^^ addition to the ceremonies celebrated within the churches, which were still too distant from each Other to provide for all spiritual necessities, the so- ^^^' licitude of the monastic missionaries had extended the worship of the cross, for the instruction and consolation of the uncultured country people. The mysterious symbol of the redemption of the human race by the sufferings of the Son of God was raised from point to point on the hillsides and in the valleys of England now ransomed from the heathen yoke. The crucifix which St. Augustin had presented for the first time to Ethelbert, on the morning after he landed on the banks of the Thames, and which the holy and pious Oswald had planted for the first time as a sign of hope and deliverance upon the soil of Northumbria on the eve of his first battle, stood in the place of an oratory and sanctuary in manydistricts scarcely yet cleared from the forest. A cross raised in the middle of a field was enough to satisfy the devotions of the thane, his ploughmen, and shepherds. They gathered around it for public and daily prayer,^^ and were inspired by it with a veneration not less affectionate than that which attached to the sanctuaries, daily increasing in number, which were almost all dedicated to the mother of Christ or St. Peter; for the prince of the apostles was then the saint most universally and frequently invoked by the Christians of Bugland.33

The unrivalled benefit of the faith was not the only scrvico which the Benedictines lavished on Converted England. It is at the risk of falling into repetition and commonplace that we dwell upon the astenes.. t- i,, ,, ^

nnmense services they rendered, there as everywhere, if not more there than anywhere else, to public in-