A Short History of Monks and Monasteries Part 18

The Encyclopaedia Brittanica divides the monastic inst.i.tutions into five cla.s.ses:

1. Monks. 2. Canons Regular. 3. Military Orders. 4. Friars. 5. Clerks Regular. All of these have communities of women, either actually affiliated to them, or formed on similar lines.

Saint Benedict distinguishes four sorts of monks: 1. Coen.o.bites, living under an abbot in a monastery. 2. Anchorites, who retire into the desert. 3. Sarabaites, dwelling two or three in the same cell. 4.

Gyrovagi, who wander from monastery to monastery. The last two kinds he condemns. The Gyrovagi or wandering monks were the pest of convents and the disgrace of monasticism. They evaded all responsibilities and spent their time tramping from place to place, living like parasites, and spreading vice and disorder wherever they went.

There were really four distinct stages in the development of the monastic inst.i.tution:

1. Asceticism. Clergy and laymen practiced various forms of self-denial without becoming actual monks.

2. The hermit life, which was asceticism pushed to an external separation from the world. Here are to be found anchorites, and stylites or pillar-saints.

3. Coen.o.bitism, or monastic life proper, consisting of a.s.sociations of monks under one roof, and ruled by an abbot.

4. Monastic orders, or unions of cloisters, the various abbots being under the authority of one supreme head, who was, at first, generally the founder of the brotherhood.

Under this last division are to be cla.s.sed the Mendicant Friars, the Military Monks, the Jesuits and other modern organizations. The members of these orders commenced their monastic life in monasteries, and were therefore coen.o.bites, but many of them pa.s.sed out of the cloister to become teachers, preachers or missionary workers in various fields.

NOTE D

Matins. One of the canonical hours appointed in the early church, and still observed in the Roman Catholic Church, especially in monastic orders. It properly begins at midnight. The name is also applied to the service itself, which includes the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, the Creed and several psalms.

Lauds, a religious service in connection with matins; so called from the reiterated ascriptions of praise to G.o.d in the psalms.

Prime. The first hour or period of the day; follows after matins and lauds; originally intended to be said at the first hour after sunrise.

Tierce, terce. The third hour; half-way between sunrise and noon.

s.e.xt. The sixth hour, originally and properly said at midday.

None, noon. The ninth hour from sunrise, or the middle hour between midday and sunset--that is, about 3 o'clock.

Vespers, the next to the last of the canonical hours--the even-song.

Compline. The last of the seven canonical hours, originally said after the evening meal and before retiring to sleep, but in later medieval and modern usage following immediately on vespers.

B.V.M.--Blessed Virgin Mary.

NOTE E

The literary and educational services of the monks are described in many histories, but the reader will find the best treatment of this subject in the scholarly yet popular work of George Haven Putnam, "Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages," to which we are largely indebted for the facts given in this volume.

NOTE F

In many interesting particulars St. Francis may be compared with General Booth of the Salvation Army. In their intense religious fervor, in their insistence upon obedience, humility, and self-denial, in their services for the welfare of the poor, in their love of the "submerged tenth,"

they are alike. True, there are no monkish vows in the Salvation Army and its doctrines bear a general resemblance to those of other Protestant communions, but like the old Franciscan order, it is dominated by a powerful missionary spirit, and its members are actuated by an unsurpa.s.sed devotion to the common people. In the autocratic, military features of the Army, it more nearly approaches the ideal of Loyola. It is quite possible that the differences between Francis and Booth are due more to the altered historical environment than to any radical diversities in the characters of the two men.

NOTE G

The quotations from Father Sherman are taken from an address delivered by him in Central Music Hall, Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, February 5, 1894, in which he extolled the virtues of Loyola and defended the aims and character of the Society of Jesus.

NOTE H

Those who may wish to study the casuistry of the Jesuits, as it appears in their own works, are referred to two of the most important and comparatively late authorities: Liguori's "_Theologia Moralis_," and Gury's "_Compendium Theologioe Moralis_" and "_Casus Conscientiae_." Gury was Professor of Moral Theology in the College Romain, the Jesuits'

College in Rome. His works have pa.s.sed through several editions. They were translated from the Latin into French by Paul Bert, member of the Chamber of Deputies. An English translation of the French rendering was published by B.F. Bradbury, of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts. The reader is also referred to Pascal's "Provincial Letters" and to Migne's "_Dictionnaire de cas de Conscience_."

NOTE I

The student may profitably study the life and teachings of Wyclif in their bearing upon the destruction of the monasteries. Wyclif was designated as the "Gospel Doctor" because he maintained that "the law of Jesus Christ infinitely exceeds all other laws." He held to the right of private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture, and denied the infallibility claimed by the pontiffs. He opposed pilgrimages, held loosely to image-wors.h.i.+p and rejected the system of t.i.thing as it was then carried on. Wyclif was also a persistent and public foe of the mendicant friars. The views of this eminent reformer were courageously advocated by his followers, and for nearly two generations they continued to agitate the English people. It is easy to understand, therefore, how Wyclif's opinions a.s.sisted in preparing the nation for the Reformation of the sixteenth century, although it seemed that Lollardy had been everywhere crushed by persecution. The Lollards condemned, among other things, pilgrimages to the tombs of the saints, papal authority and the ma.s.s. Their revolt against Rome led in some instances to grave excesses.

NOTE J

In France, the religious houses suppressed by the laws of February 13, 1790, and August 18, 1792, amounted (without reckoning various minor establishments) to 820 abbeys of men and 255 of women, with aggregate revenues of 95,000,000 livres.

The Thirty Years' War in Germany wrought much mischief to the monasteries. On the death of Maria Theresa, in 1780, Joseph II., her son, dissolved the Mendicant Orders and suppressed the greater number of monasteries and convents in his dominions.

Although Pope Alexander VII. secured the suppression of many small cloisters in Italy, he was in favor of a still wider abolition on account of the superfluity of religious inst.i.tutes, and the general degeneration of the monks. Various minor suppressions had taken place in Italy, but it was not until the unification of the kingdom that the religious houses were declared national property. The total number of monasteries suppressed in Italy, down to 1882, was 2,255, involving an enormous displacement of property and dispersion of inmates.

The fall of the religious houses in Spain dates from the law of June 21, 1835, which suppressed nine hundred monasteries at a blow. The remainder were dissolved on October 11th, in the same year.

No European country had so many religious houses in proportion to its population and area as Portugal. In 1834 the number suppressed exceeded 500.

NOTE K

The criticism of Schaff is just in its estimate of the general influence of the monastic ideal, but there were individual monks whose views of sin and salvation were singularly pure and elevating. Saint Hugh, of Lincoln, said to several men of the world who were praising the lives of the Carthusian monks: "Do not imagine that the kingdom of Heaven is only for monks and hermits. When G.o.d will judge each one of us, he will not reproach the lost for not having been monks or solitaries, but for not having been true Christians. Now, to be a true Christian, three things are necessary; and if one of these three things is wanting to us, we are Christians only in name, and our sentence will be all the more severe, the more we have made profession of perfection. The three things are: _Charity in the heart, truth on the lips, and purity of life_; if we are wanting in these, we are unworthy of the name of Christian."

THE END