A Short History of Monks and Monasteries Part 7

Enough has now been said to enable the reader to understand something of the spirit and labors of the monks in an age characteristically barbaric. For five centuries, from the fifth to the tenth, the condition of Europe was deplorable. "It may be doubted," says an old writer, "whether the worst of the Caesars exceeded in dark malignity, or in capriciousness of vengeance, the long-haired kings of France." The moral sense of even the most saintly churchmen seems to have been blunted by familiarity with atrocities and crimes. Brute force was the common method of exercising control and administering justice. The barbarians were bold and independent, but cruel and superst.i.tious. Their furious natures needed taming and their rude minds tutoring. Even though during this period churches and monasteries were raised in amazing numbers, yet the spirit of barbarism was so strong that the Christians could scarcely escape its influence. The power of Christianity was modified by the nature of the people, whose characters it aimed to transform. The remarks of William Newton Clarke respecting the Christians of the first and second centuries are also appropriate to the period under review: "The people were changed by the new faith, but the new faith was changed by the people." Christianity "made a new people, better than it found them, but they in turn made a new Christianity, with its strong points ill.u.s.trated and confirmed in their experience, but with weakness brought in from their defects."

Yes, the work of civilizing the Germanic nations was a task of herculean proportions and of tremendous significance. Out of these tribes were to be constructed the nations of modern Europe. To this important mission the monks addressed themselves with such courage, patience, faith and zeal, as to ent.i.tle them to the veneration of posterity. With singular wisdom and unflinching bravery they carried on their missionary and educational enterprises, in the face of discouragements and obstacles sufficient to dismay the bravest souls. The tenacious strength of those wild forces that clashed with the tenderer influences of the cloister should soften our criticism of the inconsistencies which detract from the glory of those early ministers of righteousness and exemplars of gentleness and peace.

IV

_REFORMED AND MILITARY ORDERS_

The monastic inst.i.tution was never entirely good or entirely bad. In periods of general degradation there were beautiful exceptions in monasteries ruled by pure and powerful abbots. From the beginning various monasteries soon departed from their discipline by sheltering iniquity and laziness, while other establishments faithfully observed the rules. But during the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries there was a widespread decline in the spirit of devotion and a shameful relaxation of monastic discipline. Malmesbury, King Alfred, Alcuin, in England, and many continental writers, sorrowfully testified against the monks because of their vices, their revelings, their vain and gorgeous ornaments of dress and their waning zeal for virtue. The priests hunted and fought, prayed, preached, swore and drank as they pleased. "We cannot wonder," says an anonymous historian, "that they should commit the more reasonable offence of taking wives." Disorders were common everywhere; the monastic vows were sadly neglected. Political and religious ideals were lost sight of amid the prevailing confusion and wild commotion of those dark days. "It is true," says Carlyle, "all things have two faces, a light one and a dark. It is true in three centuries much imperfection acc.u.mulates; many an ideal, monastic or otherwise, shooting forth into practice as it can, grows to a strange reality; and we have to ask with amazement, Is this your ideal? For alas the ideal has to grow into the real, and to seek out its bed and board there, often in a sorry way."

This, then, may be accepted as the usual history of a monastery or a monastic order. First, vows of poverty, obedience and chast.i.ty zealously cherished and observed; as a result of loyalty to this ideal, a spirit of devotion to righteousness is created, and a pure, lofty type of Christian life is formed, which, if not the highest and truest, is sufficiently exalted to win the reverence of worldly men and an extra-ordinary power over their lives and affections. There naturally follow numerous and valuable gifts of land and gold. The monks become rich as well as powerful. Then the decline begins. Vast riches have always been a menace to true spirituality. Perhaps they always will be.

The wealthy monk falls a prey to pride and arrogance; he becomes luxurious in his habits, and lazy in the performance of duty. Vice creeps in and his moral ruin is complete. The transformation in the character of the monk is accompanied by a change in public opinion. The monk is now an eyesore; his splendid buildings are viewed with envy by some, with shame by others. Then arise the vehement cries for the destruction of his palatial cloister, and the heroic efforts of the remnant that abide faithful to reform the inst.i.tution. This has been the pathway over which every monastic order has traveled. As long as there was sufficient vitality to give birth to reformatory movements, new societies sprang up as off-shoots of the older orders, some of which adopted the original rules, while others altered them to suit the views of the reforming founder. "For indeed," says Trench, "those orders, wonderful at their beginning, and girt up so as to take heaven by storm, seemed destined to travel in a mournful circle from which there was no escape." These facts partly explain the reformatory movements which appear from the ninth century on.

The first great saint to enter the lists against monastic corruption was Benedict of Aniane (750-821 A.D.), a member of a distinguished family in southern France. The Benedictine rule in his opinion was formed for novices and invalids. He attributed the prevailing laxity among the monks to the mild discipline. As abbot of a monastery he undertook to reform its affairs by adopting a system based on Basil of Asia Minor and Pachomius of Egypt. But he leaned too far back for human nature in the West, and the conclusion was forced upon him that Benedict of Nursia had formulated a set of rules as strict as could be enforced among the Western monks. Accordingly he directed his efforts to secure a faithful observance of the original Benedictine rules, adding, however, a number of rigid and burdensome regulations. Although at first the monks doubted his sanity, kicked him and spat on him, yet he afterwards succeeded in gathering about three hundred of them under his rule. Several colonies were sent out from his monastery, which was built on his patrimonial estate near Montpellier. His last establishment, which was located near Aix-la-Chapelle, became famous as a center of learning and sanct.i.ty.

One of the most celebrated reform monasteries was the convent of Cluny, or Clugny, in Burgundy, about fifteen miles from Lyons, which was founded by Duke William of Aquitaine in 910. It was governed by a code based on the rule of St. Benedict. The monastery began with twelve monks under Bruno, but became so ill.u.s.trious that under Hugo there were ten thousand monks in the various convents under its rule. It was made immediately subject to the pope,--that is, exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop. Some idea of its splendid equipment may be formed from the fact that it is said, that in 1245, after the council of Lyons, it entertained Innocent IV., two patriarchs, twelve cardinals, three archbishops, fifteen bishops, many abbots, St. Louis, King of France, several princes and princesses, each with a considerable retinue, yet the monks were not incommoded. It gave to the church three popes,--Gregory VII., Urban II. and Paschal II.

From his cell at Cluny, Hildebrand, who became the famous Gregory VII., looked out upon a world distracted by war and sunk in vice. "In Hildebrand's time, while he was studying those annals in Cluny," says Thomas Starr King, "a boy pope, twelve years old, was master of the spiritual scepter, and was beginning to lead a life so shameful, foul and execrable that a subsequent pope said, 'he shuddered to describe it.'"

Connected with the monastery was the largest church in the world, surpa.s.sed only a little, in later years, by St. Peter's at Rome. Its construction was begun in 1089 by the abbot Hugo, and it was consecrated in 1131, under the administration of Peter the Venerable. It boasted of twenty-five altars and many costly works of art.

So great was the fame and influence of this establishment that numerous convents in France and Italy placed themselves under its control, thus forming "The Congregation of Cluny."

After the administration of Peter the Venerable (1122-1156), this ill.u.s.trious house began to succ.u.mb to the intoxication of success, and it steadily declined in character and influence until its property was confiscated by the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, in 1799, and the church sold for one hundred thousand francs. It is now in ruin.

But in spite of every attempt at reform during the ninth and tenth centuries the decline of the continental monasteries continued. Many persons of royal blood, accustomed to the license of palaces, entered the cloister and increased the disorders. The monks naturally respected their blood and relaxed the discipline in their favor. The result was costly robes, instead of the simple, monastic garb, riotous living, and a general indifference to spirituality. Spurious monasteries sprang up with rich lay-abbots at their head, who made the office hereditary in their families. Laymen were appointed to rich benefices simply that they might enjoy the revenues. These lay-abbots even went so far as to live with their families in their monasteries, and rollicking midnight banquets were subst.i.tuted for the asceticism demanded by the vows. They traveled extensively attended by splendid retinues. Some of the monks seemed intent on nothing but obtaining charters of privileges and exemptions from civil and military duties.

In England the state of affairs was even more distressing than on the Continent. The evil effects of the Saxon invasion, the demoralization that accompanied the influx of paganism, and the almost complete destruction of the religious inst.i.tutions of British Christianity have already been noted. About the year 700, the island was divided among fifteen petty chiefs, who waged war against one another almost incessantly. Christianity, as introduced by Augustine, had somewhat mitigated the ferocity of war, and England had begun to make some approach toward a respect for law and a veneration for the Christian religion, when the Danes came, and with them another period of disgraceful atrocities and blighting heathenism. The Danish invasion had almost extirpated the monastic inst.i.tution in the northern districts.

Carnage and devastation reigned everywhere. Celebrated monasteries fell in ruins and the monks were slain or driven into exile. Hordes of barbaric warriors roamed the country, burning and plundering.

"At the close of this calamitous period," says Lingard, in his "History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church," "the Anglo-Saxon church presented a melancholy spectacle to the friends of religion: 1. The laity had resumed the ferocious manners of their pagan forefathers. 2.

The clergy had grown indolent, dissolute and illiterate. 3. The monastic order had been apparently annihilated. It devolved on King Alfred, victorious over his enemies, to devise and apply the remedies for these evils." The good king endeavored to restore the monastic inst.i.tution, but, owing to the lack of candidates for the monastic habit, he was compelled to import a colony of monks from Gaul.

The moral results of Alfred's reformatory measures, as well as those of his immediate successors, were far from satisfactory, although he did vastly stimulate the educational work of the monastic schools. He devoted himself so faithfully to the gathering of traditions, that he is said to be the father of English history. The tide of immorality, however, was too strong to be stemmed in a generation or two. It was a century and a half before there was even an approach to substantial victory over the disgraceful abuses among the clergy and the monks.

The churchman who is credited with doing most to distinguish the monks as a zealous and faithful body was Dunstan (924-988 A.D.), first Abbot of Glas...o...b..ry, then Bishop of Winchester, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the most conspicuous ecclesiastical personage in the history of those dark days, but his character and labors have given rise to bitter and extensive controversy.

It was Dunstan's chief aim to subjugate the Anglo-Saxon church to the power of Rome, and to correct existing abuses by compelling the clergy and the monks to obey the rule of celibacy. He was a fervent believer in the efficacy of the Benedictine vows, and in the value of clerical celibacy as a remedy for clerical licentiousness. Naturally, Protestant writers, who hold that papal supremacy never was a blessing in any country or in any age, and who think that clerical celibacy has always been a fruitful source of crime and sin, condemn the reforms of Dunstan in the most unqualified terms. A statement of a few of the many and perplexing facts may a.s.sist us to form a fairly just judgment of the man and his work.

The principle of sacerdotal celibacy appeared early in the history of Christianity, and for many centuries it was the subject of sharp contention. Roman Catholics themselves have been divided upon it. In every Christian country, from the Apostolic period onward, there were priests and teachers who opposed the imposition of this rule upon the clergy, and, on the other hand, there were those who practiced and advocated celibacy as the indispensable guarantee of spiritual power and purity.

What the rule of celibacy was at this period, in England, seems uncertain. Lingard maintains that marriage was always permitted to the clergy in minor orders, who were employed in various subordinate positions, but that those in higher orders, whose office it was to minister at the altar and to offer the sacrifice, were expressly bound to a life of the strictest continence. During the invasion of the Danes, when confusion reigned, many priests in the higher orders had not only forsaken their vows of chast.i.ty, but had plunged into frightful immoralities; and married clerks of inferior orders were raised to the priesthood to fill the ranks depleted by war. These promoted clerks were previously required to separate from their wives, but apparently many of them did not do so. Consequently, from several causes, the married priests became a numerous body, and since the common opinion seems to have been that a married priest was disgracing his office, this body was regarded as a menace to the welfare of the church and the state.

Lea, in his elaborate "History of Sacerdotal Celibacy," holds that the rule of celibacy was only binding on the regulars, or monks, and that the secular priesthood was at liberty to marry. But from several other pa.s.sages in his work it seems that he also recognizes the fact that, while marriage was common, it was in defiance of an ancient canon. "It is evident," he says, "that the memory of the ancient canons was not forgotten, and that their observance was still urged by some ardent churchmen, but that the customs of the period had rendered them virtually obsolete, and that no sufficient means existed of enforcing obedience. If open scandals and shameless bigamy and concubinage could be restrained, the ecclesiastical authorities were evidently content.

Celibacy could not be enjoined as a law, but was rendered attractive by surrounding it with privileges and immunities denied to him who yielded to the temptations of the flesh."

Throughout Western Christendom the law of celibacy was openly and shamefully trampled upon, and every reformer seemed to think that the very first step toward any improvement in clerical morals was to be taken by enforcing this rule.

When Dunstan commenced his reforms, the clergy were guilty of graver sins than that of living in marriage relations. Adultery, bigamy, swearing, fighting and drinking were the order of the day. The monasteries were occupied by secular priests with wives or concubines.

All the chroniclers of this period agree in charging the monks and clergy with a variety of dissipations and disorders.

It is quite clear, therefore, that in Dunstan's view he was doing the only right thing in trying to correct the existing abuses by compelling the priests to adopt that celibate life without which it was popularly believed the highest holiness and the largest usefulness could not be attained. In the light of this purpose and this common opinion of his time, Dunstan and his mission should be judged.

Dunstan was aided in his work by King Edgar the Pacific, who, by the way, was himself compelled to go without his crown seven years for violating the chast.i.ty of a nun. Oswald, the Bishop of Worcester, and Ethelwold, the Bishop of Winchester, were also zealously engaged in the task of reform.

A law was enacted providing that priests, deacons and sub-deacons should live chastely or resign. As a result of this law, many priests were ejected from the monasteries and from their official positions. Strict monks were put in their places. A strong opposition party was created, and the ejected clergy aroused such discontent that a civil war was barely averted. This state of things continued until the Norman invasion, when the monks and secular clergy joined forces in the common defence of their property and ecclesiastical rights.

It would seem that many writers, misled by legends for which Dunstan must not be held responsible, and blinded by religious prejudice, have unjustly charged him with hypocrisy and even crime. All his methods may not be defensible when estimated in the light of modern knowledge, and even his ideal may be rejected when judged by modern standards of Christian character, but he must be considered with the moral and intellectual life of his times in full view. He was a champion of the oppressed, a friend of the poor, an unflinching foe of sinful men in the pulpit or on the throne. His will was inflexible, his independence n.o.ble and his energy untiring. In trying to bring the Anglo-Saxon church into conformity to Rome he was actuated by a higher motive than the merely selfish desire for ecclesiastical authority. He regarded this harmony as the only remedy for the prevailing disorders. He believed, like many other churchmen of unquestioned purity and honesty, that it was necessary to compel temporal authorities to recognize the power of the church in order to overcome that defiance of moral law which was the chief characteristic of the kings and princes in that turbulent period.

What the Anglo-Saxon church might have been if the rule of celibacy had not been forced upon her, and if she had not submitted to Roman authority in other matters, is a theme for speculation only. The fact is that Dunstan found a church corrupt to the core and left it, as a result of his purifying efforts, with some semblance, to say the least, of moral influence and spiritual purity. Some other kind of ecclesiastical polity than that advocated by Dunstan might have achieved the same results as his, but the simple fact is that none did. In so far as Dunstan succeeded in his monastic measures, he laid the foundations of an ecclesiastical power which afterwards became a serious menace to the political freedom of the Anglo-Saxon race. The battle begun by him raged fiercely between the popes, efficiently supported by the monks, and the kings of England, with varying fortunes, for many centuries. But perhaps, under the plans of that benign Providence who presides over the destiny of nations, it was essentially in the interests of civilization, that the lawlessness of rulers and the vices of the people should be restrained by that ecclesiastical power, which, in after years, and at the proper time, should be forced to recede to its legitimate sphere and functions.

Another celebrated reformatory movement was begun by St. Bruno, who founded the Carthusian Order about the year 1086. Ruskin says: "In their strength, from the foundation of the order at the close of the eleventh century to the beginning of the fourteenth, they reared in their mountain fastnesses and sent out to minister to the world a succession of men of immense mental grasp and serenely authoritative innocence, among whom our own Hugh of Lincoln, in his relations with Henry II. and Coeur de Lion, is to my mind the most beautiful sacerdotal figure known to me in history."

Bruno, with six companions, established the famous Grand Chartreuse in a rocky wilderness, near Gren.o.ble, in France, separated from the rest of the world by a chain of wild mountains, which are covered with ice and snow for two-thirds of the year.

Until the time of Guigo (1137), the Grand Chartreuse was governed by unwritten rules. Thirteen monks only were permitted to live together, and sixteen converts in the huts at the foot of the hill. The policy of this monastery was at first opposed to all connection with other monasteries. But applications for admission were so numerous that colonies were sent out in various directions, all subject to the mother house. The Carthusians differed in many respects from other orders. The rules of Dom Guigo indicate that the chief aim was to preclude the monks from intercourse with the world, and largely with each other, for each monk had separate apartments, cooked his own food, and so rarely met with his brethren, that he was practically a hermit. The clothing consisted of a rough hair s.h.i.+rt, worn next the skin, a white ca.s.sock over it, and, when they went out, a black robe. Fasting was observed at least three days a week, and meat was strictly forbidden. Respecting contact with women Dom Guigo says: "Under no circ.u.mstances whatever do we allow women to set foot within our precincts, knowing as we do that neither wise man, nor prophet, nor judge, nor the entertainer of G.o.d, nor the sons of G.o.d, nor the first created of mankind, fas.h.i.+oned by G.o.d's own hands, could escape the wiles and deceits of women."

Blistering and bleeding, as well as fasting, were employed to control evil impulses. On the whole, the austerities were as severe as human nature in that wild and cold region could endure. Yet the prosperity that rewarded the piety and labors of the Carthusian monks proved more than a match for their rigorous discipline, and in the middle of the thirteenth century we read charges of laxity and disorder.

The Carthusians settled in England in the twelfth century, and had a famous monastery in London, since called the Charterhouse. The order was in many respects the most successful attempt at reform, but as has been said, "the whole order, and each individual member, is like a petrifaction from the Middle Ages." Owing to its extremely solitary ideal and its severe discipline, it was unfitted to secure extensive control, or to gain a permanent influence upon the rapidly-developing European nations. Its chief contributions to modern civilization were made by the gift of n.o.ble men who pa.s.sed from the seclusion of the cell into the active life of the world, thus practically proving that the monks' greatest usefulness was attained when loyalty to their vows yielded to a broader ideal of Christian character and service.

Thus the months pa.s.sed into years and the years into centuries. Man was slowly working out his salvation. Painfully, laboriously he emerged out of barbarism into the lower forms of civilization; wearily he trudged on his way toward the universal kingdom of righteousness and peace.

There were many other attempts at reform which may not even be mentioned, but one character deserves brief consideration,--Bernard of Clairvaux,--the fairest flower of those corrupt days. The order to which he belonged was the Cistercians, so named because their mother house was at Citeaux (Latin, _Cistercium_), in France. Its members are sometimes called the "White Monks," because of their white tunics. Their buildings, with their bare walls and low rafters, were a rebuke to the splendid edifices of the richer orders. Austere simplicity characterized their churches, liturgy and habits. Gorgeousness in decoration and ostentation in public services were carefully avoided. They used no pictures, stained gla.s.s or images. Once a week they flogged their sinful bodies. Only four hours' sleep was allowed. Seeking out the wildest spots and most rugged peaks they built their retreats, beautiful in their simplicity and furnis.h.i.+ng some of the finest examples of monastic architecture. The order spread into England, where the first Cistercians were characterized by devoutness and poverty. After a while the hand of fate wrote of them as it had of so many, "none were more greedy in adding farm to farm; none less scrupulous in obtaining grants of land from wealthy patrons." In general, the order was no better and no worse than the rest, but its chief glory is derived from the l.u.s.ter that was shed upon it by Bernard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAINT BERNARD]

This ill.u.s.trious counselor of kings and Catholic saint was born in Burgundy in 1091. When about twenty years of age he entered the monastery at Citeaux with five of his brothers. His genius might have secured ecclesiastical preferment, but he chose to dig ditches, plant fields and govern a monastery. He entered the cloister at Citeaux because the monks were few and poor, and when it became crowded because of his fame, and its rule became lax because of the crowds, he left the cloister to found a home of his own. The abbot selected twelve monks, following the number of apostles, and at their head placed young Bernard. He led the twelve to the valley of Wormwood, and there, in a cheerless forest, he established the monastery of Clairvaux, or Clear Valley. His rule was fiercely severe because he himself loved hards.h.i.+ps and rough fare. "It in no way befits religion," he writes, "to seek remedies for the body, nor is it good for health either. You may now and then take some cheap herb,--such as poor men may,--and this is done sometimes. But to buy drugs, to hunt up doctors, to take doses, is unbecoming to religion and hostile to purity." His success in winning men to the monastic life was almost phenomenal. It was said that "mothers hid their sons, wives their husbands, and companions their friends, lest they be persuaded by his eloquent message to enter the cloister." "He was avoided like a plague," says one.

Bernard's monks changed the whole face of the country by felling trees and tilling the ground. Their spiritual power rid the valley of Wormwood of its robbers, and the district grew rich and prosperous. Thus Bernard became the most famous man of his time. He was the arbiter in papal elections, the judge in temporal quarrels, the healer of schisms and a powerful preacher of the crusades. He was the embodiment of all that was best in the thought of his age. His weaknesses and faults may largely be explained by the fact that no man can rise entirely above the spirit of his times and absolutely free himself from all pernicious tendencies.

"As an advocate for the rights of the church, for the immunities of the clergy, no less than for the great interests of morality, he was fierce, intractable, unforgiving, haughty and tyrannical." There was, however, no note of insincerity in his work or writings, and no tinge of hypocrisy in fervent zeal. He was brave, honest and pure; controlled always by a consuming pa.s.sion for the moral welfare of the people.

Our chief interest in Bernard relates to his monastic work which shed undying l.u.s.ter on his name. Vaughan, in his "Hours with the Mystics,"

says of him: "His incessant cry for Europe is, Better monasteries, and more of them. Let these ecclesiastical castles multiply; let them cover and command the land, well garrisoned with men of G.o.d, and then, despite all heresy and schism, theocracy will flourish, the earth shall yield her increase, and all people praise the Lord.... Bernard had the satisfaction of improving and extending monasticism to the utmost; of sewing together, with tolerable success, the rended vesture of the papacy; of suppressing a more popular and more scriptural Christianity for the benefit of his despotic order; of quenching for a time, by the extinction of Abelard, the spirit of free inquiry, and of seeing his ascetic and superhuman ideal of religion everywhere accepted as the genuine type of Christianity."

But in spite of Dunstans, Brunos and Bernards, the monastic inst.i.tution keeps on crumbling. The edifice will not stand much more propping and tinkering. While we admire this display of moral force, this commendable struggle of fresh courage and new hope against disintegrating forces, the conviction gains ground that something is radically wrong with the inst.i.tution. There is something in it which fosters greed and desperate ambition. "Is it not a shame," we feel compelled to ask, "that so much splendid, chivalrous courage and magnificent energy should be expended in trying to prevent a structure from falling, which, it seems, could not possibly have been saved?" But while the decay could not be stayed, we must admire the n.o.ble aims and pious enthusiasm of the reformers who sought to preserve an inst.i.tution which to them seemed the only hope of a sinful world.

Dr. Storrs, in his life of Bernard, says: "His soon-canonized name has shone starlike in history ever since he was buried; and it will not hereafter decline from its height or lose its l.u.s.ter, while men continue to recognize with honor the temper of devoted Christian consecration, a character compact of n.o.ble forces, and infused with self-forgetful love for G.o.d and man."

_The Military Religious Orders_

The life of Bernard forms an appropriate introduction to a consideration of the Military Religious Orders. Although weary with labor and the weight of years, he traveled over Europe preaching the second crusade.

"To kill or to be killed for Christ's sake is alike righteous and alike safe," this was his message to the world. In spite of the opposition of court advisers, Bernard induced Louis VII. and Conrad of Germany to take the crusader's vow. He gave the Knights Templars a new rule and kindled afresh a zeal for the knighthood. Although the members of the Military Orders were not monks in the strict sense of the word, yet they were soldier-monks, and as such deserve to be mentioned here.

At the basis of all monastic orders, as has been pointed out, were the three vows of obedience, celibacy and poverty. Certain orders, by adding to these rules other obligations, or by laying special stress on one of the three ancient vows, produced new and distinct types of monastic character and life.