Part 9 (1/2)
Another great benefit they conferred upon the world was that of charity.
They were the true nurses of the poor. There were no poor laws, and union workhouses, and hospitals. The monks managed to supply all the wants of all who suffered from poverty, privation, and sickness. ”The friends.h.i.+p of the poor const.i.tutes us the friends of kings,” says St.
Bernard; ”but the love of poverty makes kings of us.” They welcomed in their ranks poor men, who were esteemed as highly as those of n.o.ble birth on entering the cloister. All men were equal who wore the monk's robe.
Amongst other services the monks rendered was the cultivation of learning and knowledge. With wonderful a.s.siduity they poured forth works of erudition, of history, of criticism, recorded the annals of their own times, and stored these priceless records in their libraries, which have done such good service to the historians of modern times. The monasteries absorbed nearly all the social and intellectual movement of the thirteenth century. Men fired with poetical imagination frequently betook themselves to the cloister, and consecrated their lives to the ornamentation of a single sacred book destined for the monastery which gave them in exchange all the necessaries of life. Thus the libraries of the monastic houses were rich in treasures of beautifully illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, which were bound by members of the community. The Abbot of Spanheim in the fifteenth century gives the following directions to his monks:--
”Let that one fasten the leaves together, and bind the book with boards.
You, prepare those boards; you, dress the leather; you, the metal plates, which are to adorn the binding.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: NETLEY ABBEY, SOUTH TRANSEPT]
Terrible is it to think of the dreadful destruction of these libraries at the time of the spoliation of monasteries and of the priceless treasures which they contained.
We are apt to suppose that the lives of the monks were gloomy, hard, severe, and that few rays of the suns.h.i.+ne of happiness could have penetrated the stern walls of the cloister. But this does not appear to have been the case. The very names of monasteries show that they rejoiced in their solitude and labour. Netley Abbey was called the Joyous Place, _loeto loco_; and on the Continent there are many names which bear witness to the happiness that reigned in the cloister.
Moreover the writings of the monks proclaim the same truth. Cluny is called by Peter Damien his _hortus deliciarum_ (garden of delights), and it is recorded that when Peter de Blois left the Abbey of Croyland to return to France he stopped seven times to look back and contemplate again the place where he had been so happy. Hear how Alcuin laments on leaving the cloister for the Court of Charlemagne:--
”O my cell! sweet and well-beloved home, adieu for ever! I shall see no more the woods which surround thee with their interlacing branches and aromatic herbs, nor thy streams of fish, nor thy orchards, nor thy gardens where the lily mingles with the rose. I shall hear no more those birds who, like ourselves, sing matins and celebrate their Creator, in their fas.h.i.+on--nor those instructions of sweet and holy wisdom which sound in the same breath as the praises of the Most High, from lips and hearts always peaceful. Dear cell! I shall weep thee and regret thee always.”
The life was very peaceful, entirely free from care, and moreover lighted by the whole-hearted friends.h.i.+ps which existed between the brethren. A chapter might be written on the love of the cloister, which like that of David for Jonathan, was ”wonderful, pa.s.sing the love of women.” Thus St. Bernard burst out in bitter grief at the loss of a brother monk:--
”Flow, flow, my tears, so eager to flow! he who prevented your flowing is here no more! It is not he who is dead, it is I who now live only to die. Why, oh, why have we loved, and why have we lost each other?”
The letters of Anselm to Lanfranc and Gondulph, his dearest friends, abound in expressions of the most affectionate regard and deep true friends.h.i.+p. He writes:--
”How can I forget thee? Can a man forget one who is placed like a seal upon his heart? In thy silence I know that thou lovest me; and thou also, when I say nothing, thou knowest that I love thee. What can my letter tell thee that thou knowest not already, thou who art my second soul?”
The monks' lot was not sad and melancholy. They loved G.o.d and His service, and rejoicing in their mutual regard and affection were happy in their love and work. Orderic Vitalis writes, ”I have borne for forty-two years with happiness the sweet yoke of the Lord.” Moreover they shed happiness on those who dwelt around them, on the crowds of masons and carpenters, traders and workmen, who dwelt under the shadow of the monastery or farmed the fields of the monastic estates. No inst.i.tution was ever more popular; no masters more beloved. They took a hearty interest in the welfare of all their tenants, and showed an active sympathy for all. The extent of their charity was enormous. In a French abbey, when food was scarce, they fed 1,500 to 2,000 poor in the course of the year, gave monthly pensions to all the families who were unable to work, entertained 4,000 guests, and maintained eighty monks--a wonderful record truly.
The influence of the monastery was felt in all the surrounding neighbourhood--the daily services, the solemn and majestic chants, the processions, must have created a deep impression on the minds of people.
Many of the great writers and thinkers of subsequent ages have appreciated the wonderful labours of the monks. Dr. Johnson wrote:--
”I never read of a hermit, but in imagination I kiss his feet; never of a monastery, but I fall on my knees and kiss the pavement.”
And now these n.o.ble buildings, hallowed by a thousand memories, exist only as dishonoured ruins. Some have been pulled down entirely, and the site used for gaols or barracks. Convicts labour where once monks prayed. The renowned abbey of Cluny is a racing stable, and Le Bec, the home of Anselm, has suffered a like profanation. Factories have invaded some of these consecrated sites. Many have been used as quarries for generations. All the carved and wrought stone has been cut off, and used for making bridges and roads and private houses. Nature has covered the remains with clinging ivy, and creeping plants, and wild flowers, and legends cl.u.s.ter round the old stones and tell the story of their greatness and their ruin. The country folk of western Ireland show the marks on the stones furrowed by the burning tears of the monks when they were driven out of their holy home. I am describing the condition of the monasteries in the days of their glory, when the spirit of the religious orders was bright and pure and enthusiastic. It cannot be denied that often the immense wealth which kings and n.o.bles poured into the treasury of the monks begat luxury and idleness. Boccaccio in Italy, and even Dante, and our own Chaucer, write vigorously against the corruption of the monks, their luxury, love of sport, and neglect of their duty. Thus Chaucer wrote of a fourteenth-century prior:--
”Therefore he was a p.r.i.c.kasoure a right: Greihounds he hadde as swift as foul of flight: Of p.r.i.c.king and of hunting for the hare Was all his l.u.s.t, for no cost wolde he spare.
I saw his sleves purfiled at the hond With gris, and that the finest in the loud.
And for to fasten his hood under his chinne, He hadde of gold ywrought a curious pinne: A love-knotte in the greter end ther was.
His head was balled, and shone as any glas, And eke his face, as it had been anoint.
He was a lord full fat and in good point His eye stepe, and rolling in his bed, That stemed as a forneis of led.
His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, Now certainly he was a fayre prelat.
He was not pale as a forpined gost.
A fat swan loved he best of any rost.
His palfrey was as broune as is a bery.”
Many were the efforts to reform the abuses which crept into the monastic houses. Holy men grieved over the scandals of the times in which they lived. Many monasteries remained until the end homes of zeal and religion, and the unscrupulous tools of Henry VIII. could find naught to report against them. The only charge they could fabricate against one monastery was ”that the monks would do evil, if they could.”
The foundation of the various orders of monks shows the efforts which were from time to time made by earnest men to revive the zeal and religious enthusiasm characteristic of the early dwellers in monasteries. The followers of St. Benedict and St. Columba were the first monks of the western Church who converted the peoples of England, Germany, Belgium, and Scandinavia. The Benedictines had many houses in England in Saxon times. In the tenth and eleventh centuries flourished a branch of the Benedictines, the order of Cluny, who worked a great religious revival, which was continued in the twelfth by the order of the Cistercians, founded at Citeaux in Burgundy. Some of our most beautiful English abbeys--Fountains, Kirkstall, Rievaulx, Tintern, Furness, and Byland--all belonged to this order. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the new orders of preaching friars founded by St.
Francis and St. Dominic arose, and exercised an immense influence in the world. They did not shut themselves up in the cloister, but went everywhere, preaching in the market-places, and tending the sick, the lepers, and the outcasts. At first they were immensely popular, but the orders degenerated like their predecessors, and long before the Reformation laid themselves open to the derision and the scoffs of the more enlightened men of the age. Since the days of the Friars there has been no building of monasteries in England. Wealth, luxury, and corruption had destroyed the early piety of the monks, and rich men preferred to give their wealth for the purpose of founding colleges and hospitals, rather than in increasing the number of religious houses.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A MONK TRANSCRIBING]