been a purely passive one. We have seen that the monasteries of the East, in accordance with that gloomy spirit of meditative asceticism which founded and maintained them, devoted themselves entirely to spiritual occupations, and by so doing exposed their inmates to all the temptations which most irresistibly beset the inactive. The opposition which the transplanted system met with in the West testified how uncongenial such a life was to the practical spirit of Italy. And the popularity attained by the followers of Benedict shows how thoroughly that far-sighted reformer appreciated the national characteristics of his countrymen, as well as the requirements of a monastic life. He perceived that spiritual sloth and arrogance could be restrained only by an admixture of secular employments with the usual religious observances. Animated by this conviction, while he subjected the ceremonies and spiritual duties of his monks to the strictest regulations, by establishing within the monastic bounds schools and nurseries for those arts and sciences which were fast disappearing from among men he not only recommended to his countrymen institutions which combined religion with such manifest practical advantages, but conferred upon that shapeless society which was to receive the truth through the instrumentality of his disciples the manifold blessings of material civilization. Agriculture, for example, which, as we have already remarked, had fallen away throughout the Empire owing to the annihilation of the labouring rural population, and which could scarcely be looked for in any perfection among the wandering tribes of Central Europe, was fostered only within the protecting walls of Benedictine monasteries. While the fertile plains of Lombardy or Campania had long been reduced to unheeded desolation by social insecurity and imperfections, there might be descried among the ridges of the Apennines valleys yet rejoicing in all their ancient fertility, where the sacred influences of the monasteries sheltered the scanty remnants of an ancient population and of an almost universally forgotten agriculture; while the monks, fearful of suffering from the consequences of a forced spirituality, employed themselves in practising those arts and handicrafts which foreign invasion had driven away from the towns1. When the activity of the Benedictine fathers was displayed in disseminating Christianity through the dark places of Europe, that close combination of worldly and religious occupations which characterized the rule of their founder proved a principal means of imparting to the new converts all the blessings of an ancient cultivation. The agricultural colonies and workshops which we have seen rising in Italy were transferred unchanged to the recesses of Gaul or Germany, and the fields encircling the monastery still continued to bear abundant produce, while the monkish "Scriptoria"? 1 See the account of Eastorwine in Bede, Hist. Abb. Wiremuth. 8. 2 Ducange (s. v. vi. 131 c.) quotes Alcuin [Opp. ii. 211. ed. Froben.]: "Hic sedeant sacræ scribentes famina legis, Necnon sanctorum dicta sacrata Patrum; within were stored with the treasures of an already obso→ lete literature'. In a word, while we must look upon the secular Hic interserere caveant sua frivola verbis, Nec mercede sua scriptor et ipse caret." "Scriptores præterea dicti in monasteriis, qui in scriptorio...... librorum scriptioni operam dabant. Monachorum enim alii, cum eorum nemo esset qui non re aliqua occuparetur, manuum operibus, officinarum monasticarum alii muniis, alii denique librorum scriptioni vacabant, certo numero ad id delecti ab Abbate, tum ut libros Ecclesiasticos, quo eorum esset semper copia, tum alios, qui ad literarum humaniorum et ecclesiasticarum studia necessarii essent, describerent. Quin etiam ea monachorum operibus manuum accensebatur. VideEthelwulfum De Abbatibus Lindisfarnensibus, c. 8.' 'Comptis qui potuit notis ornare libellos.' * 'Greg. Turon. in Vita S. Aridii, p. 200.' 'Nunquam otio indulsit, quo non aut lectionem, aut opus Christi perficeret, aut certe manibus aliquid ageret, aut denique sacros codices scriberet.' 'Lib. Ordinis S. Victoris Parisiensis MS. c. 19.' 'Quicunque de Fratribus intra Claustrum scriptores sunt, quibus officium scribendi ab Abbate injunctum est, omnibus iis Arinarius providere debet, quid scribant, et quæ ad scribendum necessaria sunt præbere, nec quisquam eorum aliud scribere, quam ille præceperit.' * Sulpitius in Vit. S. Martini, c. 7. 'Ars ibi [in Cœnobio scilicet S. Martini] exceptis scriptoribus nulla habebatur, cui tamen operi minor ætas deputabatur."" (Ducange s. v. Scriptores, vi. 131 a, b.) L clergy as more especially useful in introducing civilized principles of action into barbarian society and legislation1, 1 Some instances of the care taken to maintain education and learning among the seculars may be seen in Ducange (s. v. Clerici, ii. 393 b, c). ""Leo IV. P.P. De Cura Pastorali.' 'Omnis Presbyter habeat Clericum Scholarem, qui epistolam vel lectionem legat, et ad missam respondeat, cum quo et psalmos cantet.' 6 'Ordo Romanus' habet hoc loco, 'Clericum aut Scholarem.' Hincmarus Remensis in Capitulis de Rebus Magistri, &c. 'Si habeat Clericum, qui possit tenere Scholam, aut legere Epistolam, aut canere valeat.' c. 11.' Capitula Walterii Episcopi Aurel. c. 6.' 'Ut unusquisque Presbyter suum habeat Clericum, quem religiose educare procuret; et si possibilitas illi est, scholam in Ecclesia sua habere non negligat, &c.' Clerici dicti etiam qui literis imbuti erant, viri literati ac docti, quod Clericos potissimum literatura ac eruditio spectaret. Quippe ad Clericatum non promovebantur nisi ypaμμáтwv ÉπιOTÝμoves, ut est in 'Novell. Justin. 6. cap. 4. et Novell. 123. cap. 12.' 'Qui enim literas nescit, Clericus esse non potest.' 豪 Et ut ait Speculum Saxonicum, Lib. 1. art. 5, § 4.' 'Impossibile est aliquem Clericum nominare, nisi sit doctus, ordinatus, et tonsuratus.' Ordericus Vitalis, Lib. 3. [ap. Du Chesne, Hist. Norm. Scr. p. 464 D.] 'Clericus cognominatus est, quia peritia literarum aliarumque artium apprime imbutus est."" So the Excerptiones Ecgberti (Can. clix. ap. Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 341): "Omnes clerici, qui ad operandum sunt validi, et artificiola et litteras discant;" and the Canons enacted under King Edgar (11, 12, 34. ap. Thorpe, pp. 396, 398): “And we enjoin that every priest, in addition to lore, diligently learn a handicraft: And we enjoin that no learned priest put to shame the half learned, but improve him, if he know better:...And we enjoin that every priest diligently provide so that he have good and especially orthodox books;" and Ælfric's Pastoral Epistle (46. ap. Thorpe, Anc. Laws, pp. 461, 462). we must assign to their regular brethren the praise of having preserved for reproduction in more favored days all those arts and embellishments of the material or intellectual world which had been most valued by preceding generations. But above all we must ever peculiarly associate with the monasteries, as their greatest boon to succeeding ages, their maintenance of education. Each religious foundation, as we discern more clearly in the Carlovingian age, fulfilled the functions of a school for the clergy; and the most renowned among them were to the knowledge of their day what our universities are to "Be careful also now, I pray, that ye be better and wiser in your ghostly craft for Christ's ministries, so as is rightly befitting you that ye should be, than the secular men are in their worldly crafts. Long should he learn who has to teach; and if he will not learn to be a teacher of right wisdom, he shall afterwards be a teacher of great error, &c. Blind is the guide who has to teach God's fold, if he neither have learning nor be willing to learn, but misleads himself and his parishioners along with him.” Manual labour is likewise enjoined in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes (iii. ap. Thorpe, Anc. Laws, pp. 470, 471). “At the hours when ye leave off the reading of holy books and prayers, then shall ye undertake some useful secular work; because idleness is the soul's foe, and because the devil quickly brings into some vices him whom he finds devoid of any good work. By the custom of reading holy books, ye may learn both how yourselves shall come to heaven's kingdom, and also how ye shall teach others. By prayers also ye may be a great help both to yourselves and also to other men, who are associated with you in true love, both living and departed. By handywork ye may control your bodies, that they be the slower to vices, and also ye may provide so by that work, that with your goods ye may help poor men, who have not themselves, and have not the power to work." |