Saint Bernard — Monastic Institutions (i)
by John Lord, LL. D.
ONE of the oldest institutions of the Church is that
which grew out of monastic life. It had its seat,
at a remote period, in India. It has existed, in differ-
ent forms, in other Oriental countries. It has been
modified by Brahminical, Buddhistic, and Persian the-
ogonies, and extended to Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor.
Go where you will in the East, and you see traces of its
mighty influence. We cannot tell its remotest origin,
but we see everywhere the force of its ideas. Its fun-
damental principle appears to be the desire to propitiate
the Deity by penances and ascetic labors as the atone-
ment for sin, or as a means of rising to a higher religious
life. It has sought to escape the polluting influences of
demoralized society by lofty contemplation and retire-
ment from the world. From the first, it was a protest
against materialism, luxury, and enervating pleasures.
It recognized something higher and nobler than devo-
tion to material gains, or a life of degrading pleasure.
In one sense it was an intellectual movement, while in
another it was an insult to the human understanding.
It attempted a purer morality, but abnegated obvious
and pressing duties. It was always a contradiction,——
lofty while degraded, seeking to comprehend the pro-
foundest mysteries, yet debased by puerile supersti-
tions.
The consciousness of mankind, in all ages and coun-
tries, has ever accepted retribution for sin——more or
less permanent——in this world or in the next. And
it has equally accepted the existence of a Supreme In-
telligence and Power, to whom all are responsible, and
in connection with whom all are responsible, and
in connection with whom human destinies are bound
up. The deeper we penetrate into the occult wisdom
of the East,——on which light has been shed by modern
explorations, monumental inscriptions, manuscripts, his-
torical records, and other things which science and
genius have deciphered,——the surer we feel that the
esoteric classes of India, Egypt, and China were more
united in their views of Supreme Power and Intelli-
gence than was generally supposed fifty years ago. The
higher intellects of Asia, in all countries and ages, had
more lofty ideas of God than we have a right to infer
from the superstitions of the people generally. They
had unenlightened ideas as to the grounds of forgive-
ness. But of the necessity of forgiveness and the
favor of the Deity they had no doubt.
The philosophical opinions of these sages gave direc-
tion to a great religious movement. Matter was sup-
posed t be inherently evil, ad mind was thought to be
inherently good. The seat of evil was placed in the body
rather than in the heart and mind. Not the thoughts
of men were evil, but the passions and appetites of the
body. Hence the first thing for a good man to do was
to bring the body——this seat of evil——under subjec-
tion, if possible, to eradicate the passions and appe-
tites which enslave the body; and this was to be done
by self-flagellations, penances, austerities, and solitude,——
flight from the contaminating influences of the world.
All Oriental piety assumed this ascetic form. The
transition was easy to the sundering of domestic ties, to
the suppression of natural emotions and social enjoy-
ments. The devotee became austere, cold, inhuman,
unsocial. He shunned the habitations of men. And
the more desirous he was to essay a higher religious life
and thus rise in favor with God, the more severe and
revengeful and unforgiving he made the Deity he adored,
——not a compassionate Creator and Father, but an irre-
sistible Power bent on his destruction. Thus degrading
view of the Deity, borrowed from Paganism, tinged the
subsequent theology of the Christian monks, and entered
largely into the theology of the Middle Ages.
Such was the prevailing philosophy, or theosophy——
both lofty and degraded——with which the Christian
converts had to contend; not merely the shameless vices
of the people, so open and flagrant as to call out disgust
and indignation, but also the views which the more vir-
tuous and religious of Pagan saints accepted and pro-
mulgated: and not saints alone, but those who made the
greatest pretension to intellectual culture, like the Gnos-
tics and Manicheans; those men who were the first to
ensnare Saint Augustine,——specious, subtle, sophistical,
as acute as the Brahmins of India. It was Eastern
philosophy, unquestionably false, that influenced the
most powerful institution that existed in Europe for
above a thousand years,—–an institution which all the
learning and eloquence of the Reformers of the six-
teenth century could not subvert, except in Protestant
countries.
Now what, more specifically, were the ideals which the
early monks borrowed from India, Persia, and Egypt,
which ultimately took such a firm hold of the European
mind?
One was the superior virtue of a life devoted to purely
religious contemplation, and for the same end that ani-
mated the existence of fakirs and sofis. It was to
escape the contaminating influence of matter, to rise
above the wants of the body, to exterminate animal pas-
sions and appetites, to hide from a world which luxury
corrupted. The Christian recluses were thus led to bury
themselves in cells among the mountains and deserts, in
dreary and uncomfortable caverns, in isolated retreats
far from the habitation of men,——yea, among wild
beasts, clothing themselves in their skins and eating
their food, in order to commune with God more effec-
tually, and propitiate His favor. Their thoughts were
diverted from the miseries which they ought to
have removed, and were concentrated upon them-
selves, not upon their relatives and neighbors. The
cries of suffering humanity were disregarded in a vain
attempt to practise doubtful virtues. Howe much
good those pious recluses might have done, had their
piety taken a more practical form! What missionaries
they might have made, what self-denying laborers in
the field of active philanthropy, what noble teachers
to the poor and miserable! The conversion of the
world to Christianity did not enter into their minds so
much as the desire to swell the number of their commu-
nities. They only aimed at a dreamy pietism,——at best
their own individual salvation, rather than the salva-
tion of others. Instead of reaching to the beatific vis-
ion, they became ignorant, narrow, visionary; and
when learned, they fought for words and not for things.
They were advocates of subtile and metaphysical dis-
tinctions in theology, rather than of those practical
duties and simple faith which primitive Christianity
enjoined. Monastic life, no less than the schools of
Alexandria, was influential in creating a divinity which
gave as great authority to dogmas that are the result of
intellectual deductions, as those based on direct and
original declarations. And these deductions were often
gloomy, and colored by the fears which were inseparable
from a belief in divine wrath rather than divine love.
The genius of monasticism, ancient and modern, is the
propitiation of the Divinity who seeks to punish rather
than to forgive. It invented Purgatory, to escape the
awful burnings of an everlasting hell of physical suffer-
ings. It pervaded the whole theology of the Middle
Ages, filling hamlet and convent alike with an atmos-
phere of fear and wrath, and creating a cruel spiritual
despotism. The recluse, isolated and lonely, consumed
himself with phantoms, fancied devils, and "chimeras
dire." he could not escape from himself, although he
might fly from society. As a means of grace he sought
voluntary solitary confinement, without nutritious food
or proper protection from heat and cold, clad in a
sheepskin filled with dirt and vermin. What life could
be more antagonistic to enlightened reason? What
mistake more fatal to everything like self-improvement,
culture, knowledge, happiness? And all for what? To
strive after an impossible perfection, or the solution
of insoluble questions, or the favor of a Deity whose
attributes he misunderstood.
But this unnatural, unwise retirement was not the
worst evil in the life of a primitive monk, with all
its dreamy contemplation and silent despair. It was
accompanied with the most painful austerities,——self-
inflicted scourgings, lacerations, dire privations, to pro-
pitiate and angry deity, or to bring the body into a state
which would be insensible to pain, or to exorcise pas-
sions which the imagination inflamed. All this was
based on penance,——self-expiation,——which entered so
largely into the theogonies of the East, and which
gave a gloomy form to the piety of the Middle Ages.
This error was among the first to kindle the fiery pro-
tests of Luther. The repudiation of this error, and of
it logical sequences, was one of the causes of the Refor-
mation. This error cast its dismal shadow on the com-
mon life of the Middle Ages. You cannot penetrate
the spirit of those centuries without a painful recogni-
tion of almost universal darkness and despair. How
gloomy was a Gothic church before the eleventh cen-
tury, with its dark and heavy crypt, its narrow win-
dows, its massive pillars, its low roof, its cold, damp
pavement, as if men went into that church to hide
themselves and sing mournful songs,——the Dies Iræ
of monastic fear!
But of the primitive monks, with all their lofty self-
sacrifices and efforts for holy meditation, towards the
middle of the fourth century, as their number increased
from the anarchies and miseries of a falling empire, be-
came quarrelsome, sometimes turbulent, and generally
fierce and fanatical. They had to be governed. They
needed some master mind to control them, and confine
them to their religious duties. Then arose Basil, a
great scholar, and accustomed to civilized life in the
schools of Athens and Constantinople, who gave rules
and laws to the monks, gathered them into communi-
ties and discouraged social isolation, knowing that the
demons had more power over men when they were
alone and idle.
This Basil was an extraordinary man. His ances-
tors were honorable and wealthy. He moved in the
highest circle of social life, like Chrysostom. He was
educated in the most famous schools. He travelled
extensively like other young men of rank. His tutor
was the celebrated Libanus, the greatest rhetorician
of the day. He exhausted Antioch, Cæsarea, and Con-
stantinople, and completed his studies at Athens, where
he formed a famous friendship with Gregory Nazian-
zen, which was as warm and devoted as that between
Cicero and Atticus: these young men were the talk
and admiration of Athens. Here, too, he was intimate
with young Julian, afterwards the "Apostate" Emperor
of Rome. Basil then visited the schools of Alexandria,
and made the acquaintance of the great Athanasius,
as well as of those monks who sought a retreat amid
Egyptian solitudes. Here his conversion took place,
and he parted with his princely patrimony for the
benefit of the poor. He then entered the Church, and
was successively ordained deacon and priest, while
leading a monastic life. He retired among the moun-
tains of Armenia, and made choice of a beautiful
grove, watered with crystal streams, where he gave
himself to study and meditation. Here he was joined
by his friend Gregory Nazianzen and by enthusiastic
admirers, who formed a religious fraternity, to whom
he was a spiritual father. He afterwards was forced
to accept the great See of Cæsarea, and was no less
renowned as bishop and orator than he had been as
monk. Yet it is as a monk that he left the most
enduring influence, since he made the first great
change in monastic life,——making it more orderly,
more industrious, and less fanatical.
He instituted or embodied, among others, the three
great vows, which are vital to monastic institutions,——
Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity. In these vows he
gave the institution a more Christian and a less Ori-
ental aspect. Monachism became more practical and
less visionary and wild. It approximated nearer to
the Christian standard. Submission to poverty is cer-
tainly a Christian virtue, if voluntary poverty is not.
Chastity is a cardinal duty. Obedience is a necessity
to all civilized life. It is the first condition of all
government.
Moreover, these three vows seem to have been called
for by the condition of society, and the prevalence of
destructive views. Here Basil,——one of the command-
ing intellects of his day, and as learned and polished
as he was pious,——like Jerome after him, proved him-
self a great legislator and administrator, including in
his comprehensive view both Christian principles and
the necessities of the times, and adapting his institu-
tion to both.
One of the most obvious, flagrant, and universal evils
of the day was devotion to money-making in order to
purchase sensual pleasures. It pervaded Roman life
from the time of Augustus. The vow of poverty, there-
fore, was a stern, lofty, disdainful protest against the
most dangerous and demoralizing evil of the Empire.
It hurled scorn, hatred, and defiance on this overwhelm-
ing evil, and invoked the aid of Christianity. It was
simply the earnest affirmation and belief that money
could not buy the higher joys of earth, and might
jeopardize the hopes of heaven. It called to mind
the greatest examples; it showed that the great teach-
ers of mankind, the sages and prophets of history, had
disdained money as the highest good; that riches
exposed men to great temptation, and lowered the
standard of morality and virtue,——"how hardly shall
they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God!"
It appealed to the highest form of self-sacrifice; it
arrayed itself against a vice which was undermining
society. And among truly Christian people this new
application of Christ's warnings against the angers
of wealth excited enthusiasm. It was like enlisting in
the army of Christ against his greatest enemies. Make
any duty clear and imperious to Christian people, and
they will generally conform to it. So the world saw
one of the most impressive spectacles of history,——
the rich giving up their possessions to follow the ex-
ample and injunctions of Christ. It was the most
signal test of Christian obedience. It prompted Paula,
the richest lady of Christian antiquity, to devote the
revenues of entire city, which she owned, to the
cause of Christ; and the approbation of Jerome, her
friend, was a sufficient recompense.
The vow of Chastity was equally a protest against
one of the characteristic vices of the day, as well as a
Christian virtue. Luxury and pleasure-seeking lives
had relaxed the restraints of home and the virtues of
earlier days. The evils of concubinage were shameless
and open throughout the empire, which led to a low esti-
mate of female virtue and degraded the sex. The pagan
poets held up women as a subject of scorn and sarcasm.
On no subject were the apostles more urgent in their
exhortations than to a life of purity. To no greater
temptation were the converts of Christianity subjected
than the looseness of prevailing sentiments in reference
to this vice. It stared everybody in the face. Basil
took especial care to guard the monks from this pre-
vailing iniquity, and made chastity a transcendent and
fundamental virtue. The monks were enjoined to shun the very
presence of women. If they carried the system of non-
intercourse too far, and became hard and unsympathetic,
it was to avoid the great scandal of the age,——a still
greater evil. To the monk was denied even the bless-
ing of the marriage ties. Celibacy became a fundamen-
tal law of monachism. It was not to cement a spiritual
despotism that Basil forbade marriage, but to attain a
greater sanctity,——for a monk as consecrated to what
was rightly held the higher life. This law of celi-
bacy was abused, and gradually was extended to all the
clergy, secular as well as regular, but not till the
clergy were all subordinated to the rules of an absolute
Pope. It is the fate of all human institutions to
become corrupt; but no institution of the Church
has been so fatally perverted as that pertaining to
the marriage of the clergy. Founded to promote
purity of personal life, it was used to uphold the
arms of spiritual despotism. It was the policy of
Hildebrand.
The vow of Obedience, again, was made in special
reference to the disintegration of society, when laws
were feebly enforced and a central power was pass-
ing away. The discipline even of armies was relaxed.
Mobs were the order of the day, even in imperial cities.
Moreover, monks had long been insubordinate; they
obeyed no head, except nominally; they were with
difficulty ruled in their own communities. Therefore obedi-
ence was made a cardinal virtue, as essential to the
very existence of monastic institutions. I need not
here allude to the perversion of this rule,——how it
degenerated into a fearful despotism, and was made
use of by ambitious popes, and finally by the generals
of the Mendicant Friars and the Jesuits. All the rules
of Basil were perverted from their original intention;
but in his day they were called for.
About a century later the monastic system went
through another change or development, when Bene-
dict, a remarkable organizer, instituted on Monte
Cassino, near Naples, his celebrated monastery (529,
A. D.), which became the model of all the monasteries
of the West. He reaffirmed the rules of Basil, but
with greater strictness. He gave no new principles
to monastic life; but he adapted it to the climate and
institutions of the newly-founded Gothic kingdoms of
Europe. It became less Oriental; it was made more
practical; it was invested with new dignity. The
most visionary and fanatical of all the institutions of
the East was made useful. The monks became indus-
trious. Industry was recognized as a prime necessity
even for men who had retired from the world. No
longer were the labors of monks confined to the weav-
ing of baskets, but they were extended to the com-
forts of ordinary life,——to the erection of the stately
buildings, to useful arts, the systematic cultivation
of the land, to the accumulation of wealth,——not for
individuals, but for their monasteries. Monastic life
became less dreamy, less visionary, but more use-
ful, recognizing the bodily necessities of men. The
religious duties of monks were still dreary, monoto-
nous, and gloomy,——long and protracted singing in
the choir, incessant vigils, an unnatural silence at the
table, solitary walks in the cloister, the absence of
social pleasures, confinement to the precincts of their
convents; but their convents became bee-hives of in-
dustry, and their lands were highly cultivated. The
monks were hospitable; they entertained strangers, and
gave shelter to the persecuted and miserable. Their
monasteries became sacred retreats, which were re-
spected by those rude warriors who crushed beneath
their feet the glories of ancient civilization. Nor for
several centuries did the monks in their sacred en-
closures give especial scandal. Their lives were spent
in labors of a useful kind, alternated and relieved by
devotional duties.
Hence they secured the respect and favor of princes
and good men, who gave them lands and rich presents
of gold and silver vessels. Their convents were unmo-
lested and richly endowed, and these became enor-
mously multiplied in every European country. Grad-
ually they became so rich as to absorb the wealth of
nations. Their abbots became great personages, being
chosen from the ranks of princes and barons. The
original poverty and social insignificance of monachism
passed away, and the institution became the most pow-
erful organization in Europe. It then aspired to political
influence, and the lord abbots became the peers of princes
and the ministers of kings. Their abbey churches, espe-
cially, became the wonder and the admiration of the age,
both for size and magnificence. The abbey church of
Cluny, in Burgundy, was five hundred and thirty feet
ling, and had stalls for two hundred monks. It had the
appointment of one hundred and fifty parish priests.
The church of Saint Albans, in England, is said to have
been six hundred feet long; and that of Glastonbury, the
oldest in England, five hundred and thirty. Peterbor-
ough's was over five hundred. The kings of England,
both Saxon and Norman, were especial patrons of these
religious houses. King Edgar found forty-seven mon-
asteries and richly endowed them; Henry. founded one
hundred and fifty; and Henry II. as many more. At one
time there were seven hundred Benedictine abbeys in
England, some of which were enormously rich,——like
those of Westminster, St. Albans, Glastonbury, and
Bury St. Edmunds,——and their abbots were men of the
highest social and political distinction. They sat in Par-
liament as peers of the realm; they coined money, like
feudal barons; they lived in great state and dignity.
The abbot of Monte Cassino was duke and prince, and
chancellor of kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This cel-
ebrated convent had the patronage of four bishoprics,
sixteen hundred and sixty-two churches, and possessed
or controlled two hundred and fifty castles, four hun-
dred and forty town, and three hundred and thirty-six
manors. Its revenues exceeded five hundred thousand
ducats, so that the lord-abbot was the peer of the greatest
secular princes. He was more powerful and wealthy,
probably, than any archbishop in Europe. One of the
abbots of St. Gall entered Strasburg with one thousand
horsemen in his train. Whiting, of Glastonbury, enter-
tained five hundred people of fashion at one time, and
had three hundred domestic servants. "My vow of pov-
erty," said another of these lordly abbots,——who gene-
rally rode on mules with gilded bridles and with hawks
on their wrists,——"has given me ten thousand crowns
a year; and my vow of obedience has raised me to the
rank of a sovereign prince."
Among the privileges of these abbots was exemption
from taxes and tolls; they were judges in the courts;
they had the execution of all rents, and the supreme
control of the income of the abbey lands. The revenues
of Westminster and Glastonbury were equal to half a
million dollars a year in our money, considering
the relative value of gold and silver. Glastonbury
owned about one thousand oxen, two hundred and fifty
cows, and six thousand sheep. Fontaine abbey pos-
sessed forty thousand acres of land. The abbot of
Augia, in Germany, had a revenue of sixty thousand
crowns,——several millions, as money is now measured.
At one time the monks, with the other clergy, owned
half of the lands of Europe. If a king was to be ran-
somed, it was they who furnished the money; if costly
gifts were to be given to the Pope, it was they who
made them. The value of the vessels of gold and silver,
the robes and copes of silk and velvet, the chalices, the
altar-pieces, and the shrines enriched with jewels, was
inestimable. The feasts which the abbots gave were
almost regal. At the installation of the abbot of St.
Augustine, at Canterbury, there were consumed fifty-
eight tuns of beer, eleven tuns of wine, thirty-one oxen,
three hundred pigs, two hundred sheep, one thousand
geese, one thousand capons, six hundred rabbits, nine
thousand eggs, while the guests numbered six thousand
people. Of the various orders of the Benedictines there
have been thirty-seven thousand monasteries and one
hundred and fifty thousand abbots. From the monks,
twenty-one thousand have been chosen as bishops and
archbishops, and twenty-eight have been elevated to the
papal throne.
From these things, and others which may seem too
trivial to mention, we infer the great wealth and power
of monastic institutions, the most flourishing days of
which were from the sixth century of the Crusades, be-
ginning in the eleventh, when more than one hundred
thousand monks acknowledged to rule of Saint Bene-
dict. During this period of prosperity, when the vast
abbey churches were built, and when abbots were great
temporal as well as spiritual magnates, quite on an
equality with the proudest feudal barons, we notice a
marked decline in the virtues which had extorted the
admiration of Europe. The Benedictines retained their
original organization, they were bound by the same vows
(as individuals, the monks were always poor), they wore
the same dress, as they did centuries before, and they
did not fail in their duties in the choir,——singing their
regular chants from two o'clock in the morning. But
discipline was relaxed; the brothers strayed into un-
seemly places; they indulged in the pleasures of the
table; they were sensual in their appearance; they were
certainly ignorant, as a body; and they performed more
singing than preaching or teaching. They lived for
themselves rather than for the people. Their convents were
hotels as well as bee-hives; any stranger could remain
two nights at a convent without compensation and with-
out being questioned. The brothers dined together at
the refectory, according to the rules, on bread, vege-
tables, and a little meat; although it was noticed that
they had a great variety in cooking eggs, which were
turned and roasted and beaten up, and hardened and
minced and fried and stuffed. It is said that subse-
quently they drank enormous quantities of beer and
wine, and sometimes even to disgraceful excess. Their
rules required them to keep silence at their meals;
but their humanity got the better of them, and they
have been censured for their hilarious and frivolous
conversation,——for jests and stories and puns. Ber-
nard accused the monks of degeneracy, of being given
to the pleasures of the table, of loving the good things
which they professed to scorn,——rare fish, game, and
elaborate cookery.
That the monks sadly degenerated in morals and dis-
cipline, and even became objects of scandal, is ques-
tioned by no respectable historian. No one was more
bitter or vehement in his denunciations of this almost
universal corruption of monastic life than Saint Bernard
himself,——the impersonation of an ideal monk. Hence
reforms were attempted; and the Cluniacs and Cister-
cians and other orders arose, modelled after the original
institutions on Monte Cassino. These were only branches
of the Benedictines. Their vows and habits and duties
were the same. It would seem that the prevailing vices
of the Benedictines, in their decline, were those which
were fostered by great wealth, and consequent idleness
and luxury. But at their worst estate the monks, or
regular clergy, were no worse than secular clergy,
or parish priests, in their ordinary lives, and were more
intelligent,——at least more learned. The ignorance of
the secular clergy was notorious and scandalous. They
could not even write letters of common salutation; and
what little knowledge they had was extolled and ex-
aggerated. It was confined to the acquisition of the
Psalter by heart, while a little grammar, writing, and
accounts were regarded as extraordinary. he who
could write a few homilies, drawn from the Fathers,
was a wonder and a prodigy. There was a total ab-
sence of classical literature.
But the Benedictines, idle and worldly as they were,
guarded what little literature had escaped the ruin
of the ancient civilization. They gave the only edu-
cation the age afforded. There was usually a school
attached to every convent, and manual labor was
shortened in favor of students. Nor did the monks
systematically and deliberately shut the door of knowl-
edge against those inclined to study, for at that time
there was no jealousy of learning. There was only in-
difference to it, or want of appreciation. The age was
ignorant, and life was hard, and the struggle for exist-
ence occupied the thoughts of all. The time of the
monks was consumed in alternate drudgeries and re-
ligious devotions. There was such a general intel-
lectual torpor that scholars (and these were very few)
were left at liberty to think and write as they pleased
on the great questions of theology. There was such a
general unanimity of belief, that the popes were not
on the look-out for heresy. Nobody thought of attack-
ing their throne. There was no jealousy about the
reading of the Scriptures. Every convent had a small
library, mostly composed of Lives of the saints, and of
devout meditations and homilies; and the Bible was
the greatest treasure of all,——the Vulgate of Saint
Jerome, which was copied and illuminated by busy
hands. In spite of the general ignorance, the monks
relieved their dull lives by some attempts at art.
This was the age of the most beautiful illuminated
manuscripts. There was but little of doctrinal con-
troversy, for the creed of the Church was settled;
but pious meditations and the writings of noted
saints were studied and accepted,——especially the
works of Saint Augustine, who had fixed the thinking
of the West for a thousand years. Pagan literature had
but little charm until Aristotle was translated by Ara-
bian scholars. The literature of the Church was pue-
rile and extravagant, yet Christian,——consisting chiefly
of legends of martyrs and Lives of saints. That liter-
ature has no charm to us, and can never be revived,
indeed is already forgotten and neglected, as well it may
be; but it gave unity to Christian belief, and enthroned
the Christian heroes on the highest pedestal of human
greatness. In the monasteries some of the frater-
nity read aloud these Lives and Meditations, while the
brothers worked or dined. There was no discussion,
for all thought alike; and all sought to stimulate
religious emotions rather than to quicken intellectual
activity.
About half the time of the monks, in a well-regulated
monastery, was given to singing and devotional exer-
cises and religious improvement, and the other half to
labors in the fields, or in painting or musical compo-
sition. So far as we know, the monks lived in great
harmony, and were obedient to the commands of their
superiors. They had a common object to live for, and
had few differences in opinion on any subject. They
did not enjoy a high life, but it was free from the dis-
tracting pleasures. They held to great humility, with
which spiritual pride was mingled,——not the arrogant
pride of the dialectician, but the self-satisfied pride of
the devotee. There was no religious hatred, except
toward Turks and Saracens. The monk, in his narrow-
ness and ignorance, may be repulsive to an enlight-
ened age: he was not repulsive to his own, for he was
not behind it either in his ideas or in his habits of
life. In fact, the more repulsive the monk of the dark
ages is to this generation, the more venerated he was by
bishops and barons seven hundred years ago; which
fact leads us to infer that the degenerate monk might
be to us most interesting when he was most condemned
by the reformers of his day, since he was more humane,
genial, and free than his brethren, chained to the rigid
discipline of the convent. Even a Friar Tuck is not so
repulsive to us as an unsocial, austere, narrow-minded,
and ignorant fanatic of the eleventh century.
But the monks were not to remain forever impris-
oned in the castles of ignorance and despair. With
the opening of the twelfth century light began to dawn
upon the human mind. The intellectual monk, long
accustomed to devout meditations, began to speculate
on those subjects which had occupied his thoughts,——
on God and His attributes, on the nature and penalty
of sin, on redemption, on the Saviour, on the power of
the will to resist evil, and other questions that had
agitated the early Fathers of the Church. Then arose
such men as Erigena, Roscelin, Bérenger, Lanfranc, An-
selm, Bernard, and others,——all more or less orthodox.
but inquiring and intellectual. It was within the walls
of the cloister that the awakening began and the first
impulse was given to learning and philosophy. The
abbey of Bec, in Normandy, was the most distinguished
of the new intellectual centres, while Clairvaux and other
princely abbeys had inmates as distinguished for medi-
tative habits as for luxury and pride.
from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume III, Part I: The Middle Ages, pp. 135 - 158
©1883, by John Lord.
©1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York
Posted May 14, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC
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