No More Learning

The hermit Carthusians admired but had
no desire to emulate the rapid growth of cenobite reform under the
Cistercians. Their humility and rejection of ambition met with its reward
in the later Middle Ages, when, amid the decay of the cenobite orders,
they still preserved their pristine zeal.
Another order of a somewhat novel type was developed from experience
gained in hermitages. Robert of Arbrissel, a Breton, was, like Bruno,
a learned theologian, who left his lectures at Angers to become an
anchorite in the forest of Craon, where he was joined by a crowd of
imitators. The place was too strait for them all, and they parted to form
distinct bands in neighbouring forests. Their leaders seem to have learned
by experience that the solitary life in separate cells could not be of the
same profit to all. Robert himself founded a monastery for those who
- preferred a cenobite life. One of his principal followers, Vital, a canon of
Mortain, founded the cenobite congregation of Savigny, afterwards merged
in the order of Cîteaux; another, Bernard of Abbeville, was the founder
of the congregation of Thiron. Robert, however, called upon by Urban II
to join in preaching the Crusade, conceived the idea of founding a house


## p. 671 (#717) ############################################

Fontevrault
671
of prayer for those who, smitten with penitence but unable to take part
in the holy war, might compensate for their disability by devoting them-
selves to God. From the first this house, established at Fontevrault about
1100, was intended to include women as well as men. Nunneries had
played a very small part in the recent history of monasticism. The great
abbeys ruled at an earlier date by women, such as Whitby and Chelles,
had disappeared; others, like Remiremont in the Vosges, seem to have
lost their regular character early, and developed as houses of secular
canonesses. In 1028 Fulk the Black of Anjou had founded a nunnery at
Ronceray, to which he attached four clerks or canons as chaplains: an
arrangement which we find repeated in the canonries annexed to the
important nunneries in the south of England, which owed their origin to
the royal house of Wessex and, whatever decline they may have suffered
during the period before the conquest, recovered their vigour under the
Norman kings. With the approach of the twelfth century, nunneries
began to assume a larger part in religious organisation. The existence of
communities of women, however, raised special problems. Nunneries,
without adequate protection, were exposed to the risk of secular violence;
they needed the ministrations of priests in spiritual things, of manservants
in temporal. Thus there grew up, in more than one order, those double
monasteries in which a cloister of clerks and lay brothers existed side by
side with a cloister of nuns.
The symbolic idea of the double community at Fontevrault, whose
patrons were St Mary and St John, was the care which the beloved
disciple bestowed upon the mother of our Lord. The abbess was supreme
over the monastery. The women, of whom there were 300 in the largest
cloister alone, were consecrated to prayer; the men were charged with
the temporal needs of the house. Cloisters, dedicated to St Lazarus and
St Mary Magdalene respectively, were set apart for the diseased and the
penitent. The Rule of St Benedict was stringently enforced; the use of
meat was forbidden, and the community was ordered to receive no gifts
of parish churches or tithes. In 1106 the new order was approved by
Paschal II, and in 1113 it received the privilege of exemption. Daughter
houses soon grew up in Anjou, Touraine, Berri, and Poitou; and the
success of the order was so great that in 1145 there were said to be more
than 5000 nuns at Fontevrault itself. Nuns were brought from it into
England by Henry II to reform the abbey of Amesbury; others were
settled at Nuneaton and at Westwood in Worcestershire; and the church
of Fontevrault became the chosen resting-place of the Angevin royal
family.
Hitherto, none of the organised congregations which had arisen since
the days of Cluny had produced a far-reaching effect outside certain
localities. Their reforms, moreover, had for the most part pointed away
from the cenobite ideal. The qualified approval which St Benedict had
CH. XX.


## p. 672 (#718) ############################################

672
Foundation of the Cistercian Order
given to the hermit life was supplanted by a theory which regarded the
cenobite system as a concession to human frailty rather than as the
normal school of God's service. It was only natural that the devout
reformer, face to face with the splendour of Cluny or Saint-Denis, should
contrast it unfavourably with the naked simplicity of Camaldoli or the
Grande-Chartreuse, and question the spirituality of the system which it
represented. But the greatest of the twelfth century reforms was instituted
upon strictly cenobite lines; and only in one outstanding detail did it
depart from the spirit of the Rule of St Benedict. Even in this, its
adoption of the congregational principle, it differed widely from the
Cluniac system of centralised government under a single head.
The institution of the order of Cîteaux marks the third great epoch
in the history of medieval monachism. The reforms of Benedict of Aniane
had been short-lived; the purity of Cluny had become alloyed by customs
out of keeping with the intention of its founders. In 1098, Robert, Abbot
of the Benedictine house of Molesme in the diocese of Langres, with six
of his monks, dissatisfied with the imperfect observance of the Rule in
their monastery, migrated, with licence from the papal legate Hugh,
Archbishop of Lyons, to Cîteaux, a desolate place covered with thick
woods and thorn-bushes in the diocese of Chalon. Here, on Palm Sunday,
21 March 1098, the birthday of St Benedict, the Cistercian order took
its beginning. The new monastery was approved by the local diocesan,
and the expenses of its wooden buildings were defrayed by Eudes, Duke
of Burgundy, who proved a good friend to the struggling community.
Robert himself was recalled to Molesme within a year of the foundation ;
and it was his successor, Alberic, who obtained papal approval of the
literal observance of the Rule of St Benedict to which he and his monks
devoted themselves. But the monastery was as yet insignificant; during
the first years of its existence, its promise can hardly have seemed to
contemporary observers as great as that of Fontevrault or Savigny. Its
legislator arrived in 1109, in the person of the third abbot, the Englishman
Stephen Harding. It was not, however, until 1113 that the event took
place which was, within a few years, to raise Cîteaux to a position of
unrivalled influence in the Church at large. In that year St Bernard,
with thirty companions, including his brothers, made his profession to
Abbot Stephen ; and in the same year Cîteaux, enlarged in numbers, sent
out its first colony to la Ferté-sur-Grosne.
By the time of the promulgation of the Carta Caritatis, which was
confirmed by Calixtus II at Saulieu on 23 December 1119, the wide
expansion of the Cistercian order was a certainty. The foundation of
la Ferté was followed by that of Pontigny in 1114. Clairvaux, with
Bernard as its abbot, and Morimond, both in the diocese of Langres,
were colonised on 25 June 1115. To the abbots of these four houses
special pre-eminence was given in the councils of the order ; from them
and from Cîteaux proceeded those generations of abbeys which in quick
1


## p. 673 (#719) ############################################

The Charter of Charity
673
succession rose all over Europe. At the date of the confirmation of the
Charter of Charity, the order possessed twelve monasteries, of which seven
were daughters of Cîteaux, two of Pontigny, and two of Clairvaux. As
yet, it had not extended far beyond the bounds of Burgundy and Cham-
pagne; but its circle of influence was beginning to widen, and one house,
Cadouin in the distant diocese of Sarlat, which owed its foundation to
Robert of Arbrissel, had been affiliated to Pontigny.
The Charter of Charity was drawn up to ensure mutual peace and
love between the houses of the order. As a constitutional document, its
essential point is the position of Cîteaux as the head of the family. The
autocracy of Cluny was not copied. Reverence and obedience were due
to Cîteaux as a parent; but a certain degree of autonomy was necessary
for each house. The order was not composed of an abbot and a crowd
of completely dependent priors. Each monastery was ruled by its own
abbot, whose responsibility to his superior was purely spiritual. The
Abbot of Cîteaux had the cure of souls of the order; but he might levy
no temporal exactions upon his spiritual children. In the primitive inter-
pretation of the Rule, in divine service, and in customs, uniformity on
the pattern of Cîteaux was to be kept ; a monk of one house would find
nothing strange or unfamiliar in another. In all houses of the order, the
abbots gave place to the Abbot of Cîteaux, if he happened to visit them.
On the other hand, the visitatorial power of the Abbot of Cîteaux
was limited. If he practically took charge of a daughter-monastery during
his visitation, he might alter nothing without the consent of its abbot
and the convent, and the advice of the abbot was necessary to his cor-
rection of faults. He might not receive guests in the guest-house, unless
the abbot was away. Further, the visitation of each monastery, once a
year, belonged to the abbot of the house which was its immediate parent.
Thus, among the twelve abbeys existing at the end of 1119, Pontigny
and Clairvaux were subject to visitation from Cîteaux, but the Abbot of
Pontigny was the visitor of Bouras and Cadouin, and the Abbot of Clair-
vaux of Trois-Fontaines and Fontenay ; and, within a short time, the
abbots of these daughters of Pontigny and Clairvaux were exercising the
same right over daughters of their own. The order spread in this way
by a closely connected system of affiliated houses, each descending in a
regular line of pedigree from Cîteaux, the mother of all. At Cîteaux the
yearly chapter-general of the order was held, with the abbot as president;
at such assemblies and elsewhere where they met, the precedence of abbots
was determined by priority of foundation. Measures, however, were taken
for holding the power of the Abbot of Câteaux in check. He himself was -
subject to visitation by the four prime abbots of the order; if he was
unsatisfactory, they were charged with special powers of correction, short
of deposition or excommunication, which were reserved to the decision of
the chapter-general. Similarly, the settlement of controversies between
abbeys belonged to the Abbot of Cîteaux, but not without the choice of
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. XX.
43


## p. 674 (#720) ############################################

674
The Cistercian Constitution
such assessors as he might think fit. The removal of other abbots was
delegated to the abbot of the parent house with others to help him ;
while a similar committee presided over the elections of abbots and guided
the decision of the convents concerned. To sum up, each house of the
order had its place in an hierarchy at the apex of which was Câteaux ;
each was under some degree of supervision exercised by the abbot from
whose monastery it took birth. The primacy of the whole order was
secured for Cîteaux, which had the immeasurable advantage of being the
regular seat of the chapters-general; but the monarchy of the Abbot of
Cîteaux was limited by necessary safeguards, and his autocracy was im-
possible without complete subversion of the constitution.
To Stephen Harding, who thus gave the order its constitution, are
ascribed also the earliest of its institutes. In enforcing uniformity of
custom, he aimed at the removal of all superfluous splendour of furniture
and ritual. Gold and silver ornaments were forbidden; only the vessels
of the altar were to be of silver or silver gilt. Crosses were to be of
painted wood, candlesticks of iron, censers of copper or iron. The vest-
ments were of the most simple kind and material; copes, dalınatics, and
tunicles were banished, and the altar coverings were of plain linen without
embroidery. The series of Cistercian statutes of which the text has been
preserved to us represents a growth of many years and successive codifi-
cations from the time of Raynard, who succeeded Stephen in 1134. The
body of Cistercian statutes, approved and added to by successive chapters-
general, formed no Rule; one essential precept of the order was the
uniform interpretation of and loyalty to the Rule of St Benedict. The
systematic arrangement of the statutes under inclusive headings was
begun in 1203, and the Institutiones, revised in 1240 and again in 1256,
give a more detailed and comprehensive view of Cistercian customs than
the earliest series. Even at the later date, the puritanism of the order
and its avoidance of all ostentation were strongly maintained. The choice
of remote sites for abbeys, the abstinence from superfluous and curious
ornament, were still insisted on. Stained-glass windows and stone bell-
towers were forbidden as non-essentials; wooden bell-towers must not be
of immoderate height. It is possible to trace some modifications in the
later statutes; the prohibition of gold and silver crosses was confined to
crosses of large size, and the limitation of the use of meat to the infirmary
buildings was not accompanied by its specific limitation to infirm persons.
In the dignified simplicity of the services, for which elaborate regulations
existed in the early Liber Usuum, there was no important change. In
theory, at any rate, the Cistercian of the thirteenth century still adhered
to the example bequeathed to him by Stephen Harding and Bernard.
The regulations for the foundation of new abbeys implicitly prevented
the growth of subordinate priories. When a new house was founded to
the honour of St Mary, to whom, in memory of the beginnings of the
order in St Mary's at Molesme, all its monasteries were dedicated, the


## p. 675 (#721) ############################################

Cistercian lay-brothers
675
head of the thirteen monks sent out to colonise it was the abbot. Each
monastery had its granges, divided from one another by specified mini-
mum distances; but every care was taken that the grange should not
become the permanent abode of a small body of religious. No monk save
the cellarer, the temporal officer of the abbey, might have charge of it.
If monks went, as in harvest-time, to work at the granges, they might
pass the night there only in cases of absolute necessity. No churchyards
were to be made or burials take place at granges. Such places, in fact,
were intended for the support, not for the residence of the community;
and their care was entrusted to the conversi or lay-brothers.
The conversus or laicus barbatus was by no means a peculiarly Cistercian
institution ; but it was in this order that his position was most clearly
defined. In a self-supporting community, far from populous places, it
was necessary to have workmen on the spot. Although the Rule prescribed
manual labour to its followers, the prime duty of a monk was prayer and
his proper place was the cloister, not the field or workshop. Thus, when
Alberic undertook the rule of Citeaux, he and his monks decided to
receive conversi, whom they would treat as themselves in life and death,
save that they were not to be admitted as monks. The hire of workmen,
however, was also contemplated; and hired artificers and labourers are
mentioned in the early statutes. We have no means of estimating how
many conversi Cîteaux supported at first, or how many were sent out to
la Ferté in 1113. It is certainly probable that this consecration of labour
received some stimulus from non-Cistercian sources. The community of
Thiron, established in the diocese of Chartres about 1114, consisted
largely of men who were encouraged by Bernard of Abbeville to exercise
in their monastery the trades to which they had been trained ; and the
enlistment of these tirones in the service of God appears to have given
Thiron its name. But there can be no doubt that, with the rapid develop-
ment of Cistercianism after the foundation of Clairvaux and Morimond
in 1115, conversi entered the order in large numbers. They were admitted
purely as labourers; they took the vows, but were prohibited from learning
to read or write. They were lodged in the cellarer's building on the west
side of the cloister, which frequently, as at Fountains, Ourscamp, and
Vauclair, testifies to the very ample accommodation which their numbers
required. Their simple offices, consisting of repetitions of prescribed
prayers, were said in the nave of the church, before they went out, early
in the morning, to the workshops and granges. At the granges, they had
intervals at the canonical hours for devotions, led by their appointed
overseers. Their chapter-meeting was held every Sunday by the abbot or
his deputy. From the early Usus Conversorum, which prescribes their
manner of life, it is clear that they were intended mainly for field-work,
and that batches of them resided temporarily on the granges; while the
directions for their habit had field-work mainly in view. There can be
little doubt, however, that they made themselves useful in the various
CH. XX.
43-2


## p. 676 (#722) ############################################

676
Growth of Cistercianism
offices and workshops which, as at Clairvaux, filled the outer court of the
monastery ; and, if Cistercian architecture, the natural consequence and
appropriate expression of the devotion of the order to ideals which excluded
all Aattery of the senses, cannot be proved to owe anything to the brain
of the conversus, it was certainly aided by his hands.
One principle, laid down in the preamble to the Charter of Charity,
was the necessity of episcopal consent to the establishment of a Cistercian
house in any diocese. In this, no doubt, the collisions between the exempt
Cluniacs and the ordinary authority were remembered. The order, how-
ever, was exempted in process of time from diocesan authority; and the
later statutes uphold its freedom from episcopal visitation. Relations
between bishops and Cistercian monasteries were generally friendly: the
Cistercian abbot received benediction from the local diocesan or his suf-
fragan, and bishops on their primary visitation tours claimed the right
of a night's hospitality as guests in the houses where they could not sit
as judges. The secluded sites of Cistercian abbeys brought them seldom,
in the ordinary course of things, into conflict with parochial authorities.
Their own churches were entirely reserved for the purposes of their com-
munities; the parish altars, found in many Benedictine and Augustinian
churches, had no place in their naves. The examples of St Benedict gave
no precedent for the possession of appropriated parish churches or tithes,
and the founders of the order rejected such gifts. Although their suc-
cessors abandoned this principle, the appropriation of churches and tithes
was less eagerly sought by the Cistercian order than by others; and, at
the suppression, Fountains, the best endowed of English Cistercian houses,
derived a mere fraction of its income from this source.
The call of the Cistercian order to men to save their souls by retire-
ment from the world to a life of voluntary abstinence and prayer in
uninhabited valleys had an extraordinary power. Cîteaux, by virtue of
its compact organisation, and with the aid of the missionary zeal and
ubiquitous energy of St Bernard, outstripped all other congregations in
the rapidity of its growth. In 1120 it set foot in Italy, at Tiglieto in
Liguria, founded from la Ferté; while Morimond made its first step
eastwards to Bellevaux in Franche-Comté. In 1123 and 1127 Morimond
established two important colonising centres in Germany, Camp in the
diocese of Cologne and Ebrach in Franconia ; from Camp the movement
spread into the central and north-western districts of Germany, while the
first daughter of Ebrach was Reun in Styria. Meanwhile, in 1128, through
l'Aumône in the diocese of Chartres, a daughter of Cîteaux, the Cistercians
reached England at Waverley in Hampshire ; and the same house in 1131
sent another colony to Tintern, quickly followed in 1132 by Rievaulx, of
the family of Clairvaux. In the previous year Clairvaux had established
houses in Franche-Comté and the dioceses of Geneva and Mayence. In
1132 she founded Moreruela in the kingdom of Leon, the earliest monas-
tery of the order in Spain. Rievaulx in 1136 became the mother of the


## p. 677 (#723) ############################################

Cistercian foundations in Europe
677
first Scottish house at Melrose. Clairvaux reached Flanders at les Dunes
and Portugal at Alofoễs in 1138, and founded Whitland in South Wales
in 1140. In 1142 Irish Cistercianism began at Mellifont, which, through
the friendship of Malachy O'Morgair for Bernard, joined the family of
Clairvaux; and in 1143 the same family was increased by two Swedish
houses, at Alvastra and Nydala. In 1144 Denmark was entered by Cîteaux
at Herrevad ; and in 1146 and 1147 two English monasteries of the line
of Clairvaux, Fountains and its daughter Kirkstead, colonised Lysa and
Hovedö in Norway. Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia received their earliest
colonists from monasteries of the line of Morimond in 1142 and 1143;
and in 1150 Clairvaux founded a house at Cabuabbas in Sardinia.
Many other monasteries were founded during this period; and, apart
from the great activity of Clairvaux and Morimond, the younger houses,
especially in England, were very prolific. Waverley and Rievaulx produced
large families; and Fountains, which, after its secession from St Mary's
at York in 1132, joined the order in 1135, owned no less than eight
daughters at the beginning of 1151. In Ireland also Mellifont owned
five daughter-houses within eight years of its foundation. Progress in
the German and Austrian provinces, through Morimond and its offshoots,
was remarkable. Throughout the Spanish peninsula the line of Clairvaux
spread, monopolising Portugal, Gallicia, and Leon ; while the Gascon
foundations of Morimond colonised Navarre and Castile, and shared
Aragon and Catalonia with the children of Clairvaux, who eventually
reached Valencia and Majorca, as the Christian arms advanced against
the Moors. In Italy progress was slower ; but all the chief houses estab-
lished their lines in various parts of the country, and that of Clairvaux
grew with fair rapidity. St Bernard himself was present at the foundation
of Chiaravalle in Lombardy in 1136, and the first abbot of the monastery
of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio at Rome, Bernard of Pisa, was raised to
the Papacy in 1145 as Eugenius III. From 1145 to 1153 the Church
was virtually ruled from Clairvaux; and with the deaths of St Bernard
and Eugenius in 1153, the great age of Cistercian activity ended.
At the end of 1151 the order numbered 330 monasteries; and the
general chapter of 1152 passed a decree that no more were to be founded.
Nevertheless, at St Bernard's death on 20 August 1153, the number had
risen to 343. Three more were founded within the next month; and the
increase, though at a less phenomenal rate, was so steady that, by the
end of the thirteenth century, this total of 346 was more than doubled.
With the exception of Cîteaux itself, these houses had come into being
in little more than forty years. It should be remembered, however, that
the process of colonisation was aided by the accession of houses like
Fountains, which had begun life by initiating reform on their own lines.
The monastery of Savigny, soon after the time of its foundation about
1112, had become the head of a reformed congregation, much on the
lines of Cîteaux. In 1147 Savigny, with twenty-seven daughter-houses in
CH. XX.


## p. 678 (#724) ############################################

678
Canons regular
France and the British Isles, was united bodily to the Cistercian order and
affiliated to Clairvaux. In the same year the sinall congregation of Obasine
in the Limousin was united to Citeaux; and later, in 1162, the monastery
of Dalon in the same district, with six daughters, joined the line of
Pontigny. The wisdom of Cistercian polity was shewn in these cases by
the fact that the abbots of the chief monasteries of these affiliated con-
gregations remained the visitors of their daughter-houses, and some
indulgence was allowed to existing practices not in harmony with Cis-
tercian customs. Although, in the bull of Eugenius III which united the
Savigniac houses to the order of Cîteaux, they are identified with those
of the obedience of Thiron, Thiron and its daughters, among which were
Kelso and Arbroath in Scotland, remained apart, and eventually were
referred to habitually as Benedictine, differing only from Benedictine
monks in their grey habit. Similarly, the congregation of Val-des-Choux
in Burgundy, founded in 1193, had much in common with the Cistercians
and wore a white habit; but their customs were largely derived by their
founder, a conversus of the Charterhouse of Louvigny, from Carthusian
sources, and their priories were subordinated to the parent house on the
Cluniac model. Of some thirty priories, three were in Scotland; and the
beautiful remains of Pluscarden in the diocese of Moray shew considerable
influence, both in plan and architecture, from Cistercian houses.
The immediate influence of Cîteaux affected the movement which took
place during the first half of the twelfth century among regular canons.
The attempt to enforce a rule of life upon clerks, of which we have seen
the beginning, was hampered by the secular preferences both of themselves
and of the monks who sought to emulate their comparative freedom from
restraint. In 1059 Nicholas II, at the instigation of Peter Damian, held
a council at which the duty of the common life and the renunciation of
private property were made obligatory upon corporations of canons; and
in 1063 these principles were reasserted by Alexander II, who introduced
canons of the reformed congregation of San Frediano at Lucca into his
metropolitan church of St John Lateran. We have signs of the influence
of these reforms in England, in indications of provisions for the common
life at Beverley and Southwell in the time of the Confessor, and in the
establishment of the Lotharingian system of communal chapters at Exeter
and Wells. Mentions of the Rule of St Augustine begin to appear soon
after the council of 1063. This Rule, founded upon the famous letter of
St Augustine to a congregation of religious women, was supposed to
embody the principles upon which he had constituted the common life of
his clerks at Hippo. The English churches which have been mentioned
never received it; and the normal cathedral and collegiate chapters of
canons, both here and abroad, consisted of secular clerks, holding separate
prebends of varying value, possessing their own houses, and, if they chose
to reside in person, receiving additional allowances from the common


## p. 679 (#725) ############################################

Augustinian canons
679
fund. But the Augustinian reform had its result, early in the twelfth
century, in the frequent substitution of regular for secular canons in
churches where the canonical life had fallen into decay, and in the founda-
tion of communities of clerks on what was really a monastic basis, although
the Rule which they followed was lighter and admitted of a more liberal
interpretation than that of St Benedict. The Rule was enforced upon
all canons regular by Innocent II in 1139; but, before this date, houses
had come into existence in large numbers in England and France. In
France Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, who had received a monastic training at
Bec under Lanfranc, promoted the formation of such bodies. In England
canons regular of St Augustine seem to have appeared first in 1106 at
St Botolph's, Colchester; the order spread within the next few years, and
in 1133 the priory church of Carlisle was converted into the cathedral
church of a new diocese.
Augustinian, like Benedictine, houses were autonomous communities
following their own local customs. As among Benedictines, so here, certain
centres of activity, such as the famous house of Saint-Victor at Paris,
Saint-Ruf at Avignon, and the Holy Cross at Coimbra, which adopted
the customs of Saint-Ruf, formed local congregations with common
observances, and occasionally, as in the congregations of Saint-Victor
and Arrouaise, with distinctive habits. Some communities from the first
appear to have sought a quasi-monastic seclusion ; but one powerful
reason for the establishment of communities of clerks had been the forma-
tion of centres from which neighbouring parish churches could be served.
There is abundant evidence in Domesday Book of the presence in England
of small “minsters” of secular clerks on these lines. Some of these dis-
appeared, some were continued as secular colleges, and some in process of
time adopted the Augustinian Rule; the continuance of the system in
Augustinian houses is indicated by the number of parish churches which,
in many instances, formed a prominent factor in their early endowments.
In later times, ecclesiastical legislation leaned to the natural view that
the dispersion of canons in appropriated churches was incompatible with
the maintenance of divine service in their monasteries. From the begin-
ning of the thirteenth to the middle of the fourteenth century the practice,
although it survived in certain privileged cases, or where custom was too
strong to be checked by legislation, was largely discontinued and was
discouraged by diocesan authorities. It revived in England during the
dearth of priests caused by the great pestilence of 1349, and was very
general during the fifteenth century ; but by that time the distinction
between canons and monks was almost obliterated, and it is probable
that the institution of a canon to the vicarage of a church meant little
more than that the endowment of the vicarage was ear-marked for his
maintenance in his monastery, and that the cure of souls was served for
a small wage by a stipendiary chaplain. The privilege, however, of serving
parish churches, though generally withdrawn from Augustinians by Canon
CH. XX.


## p. 680 (#726) ############################################

680
The Premonstratensian Order
Law, was constantly maintained by the order of Prémontré, which laid
the strictest interpretation upon the Rule.
The founder of the Premonstratensian order, Norbert, a native of
Xanten, underwent the experience, so usual at that epoch, of sudden
conversion from a worldly life to evangelical penitence. As a secular canon
at Xanten, and afterwards as an inmate of regular houses, his austerities
and exhortations made him unpopular. Surrendering his benefices and
despoiling himself of worldly goods, he journeyed to Saint-Gilles in
Languedoc, and there obtained from Gelasius II a general licence to
preach repentance. Travelling northward again with a few disciples, he
found a friend in Bartholomew, Bishop of Laon, who offered him the
church of Saint-Martin in his episcopal city. The canons of Saint-Martin,
however, refused to conform to his strict way of life; and Bartholomew,
unwilling to lose his services, gave him his choice of a site in the diocese
on which he might found a new church. The place was found in 1120
at Prémontré, over which the Cistercian owners relinquished their claims.
Here he and his followers determined to adopt the Rule of St Augustine,
with a severity of observance strongly coloured by customs derived from
Cîteaux. The constitution of the new order was on the model of the
Charter of Charity, with its system of a limited monarchy, affiliated
houses, and chapters-general at the parent monastery.
In the white habit,
in simplicity of dress, ritual, and architecture, in abstinence from flesh-
meat and in long fasts, it followed the Cistercian example. Norbert and
Bernard of Clairvaux, though not without differences of opinion, were
closely united in friendship; and, if Bernard rejected Norbert's views on
the reign of Anti-Christ as a present fact, they found common ground
in their opposition to the more obvious danger represented by Abailard.
Some twenty years after the order of Prémontré had come into being,
Laurence of Liège likened the two orders to the cherubim, spreading out
their wings in the midst of the tabernacle on either side of the mercy-seat,
and to the two witnesses of the Apocalypse, sent by God at the end of
the world, and clothed in the sackcloth of penitence. The repression of
the heresy of Tanchelin at Antwerp by Norbert brought the order into
the Low Countries ; and his promotion to the archbishopric of Magde-
burg in 1126 ensured its success in Germany. In 1127, when Honorius II
confirmed the order in its possessions, it had nine abbeys, Prémontré,
Saint-Martin at Laon, Saint-Michael at Antwerp, two in the diocese of
Münster, and one in each of the dioceses of Soissons, Liège, Mayence, and
Metz. By 1144, ten years after Norbert's death, the nine had grown to
seventy. Some nine years later, the order was to be found in almost every
country in Europe and had reached Palestine. The eventual number of
its houses is somewhat variously stated, and some estimates appear to be
extravagant. The first English monastery, Newhouse in Lincolnshire,
was colonised from Licques in the Boulonais in 1143; and eventually the
order could count some thirty houses in England and Wales. The estab-


## p. 681 (#727) ############################################

Double monasteries
681
lishment of dependent priories, a natural consequence of the connexion
of the canons with parish churches, marks a point of divergence from
Cistercian custom. There were also several cathedral churches with
Premonstratensian chapters, of which we have one British example at
Whithorn in Galloway.
In another respect also this order, in its early days, presented a
contrast to Cîteaux. The Fontevraldine experiment of monasteries
combining monks with nuns was never contemplated by the Cistercians.
Women, indeed, soon embraced the Cistercian interpretation of the Rule
of St Benedict; and Stephen Harding founded the first Cistercian nunnery
in 1120, at Tart in the diocese of Langres. Such nunneries took their
place in the line of affiliation; but abbesses were not admitted to chapters-
general, and, in time, the nunneries of certain countries held their own
general chapters. In England no affiliation between Cistercian nunneries
can be traced: these small and poor houses, like Benedictine nunneries,
sprang up independently; their connexion with the order was simply
their adoption of Cistercian customs ; and, like Benedictine nunneries
again, their visitors were the diocesan bishops. Where the original link
to the main order was closer, the alliance tended to become little more
than nominal ; and the difficulty of supervision is illustrated by the fact
that it was possible in 1210 for the Infanta Constance to usurp the
functions of an abbot in the nunnery of las Huelgas at Burgos, founded
by her father Alfonso VIII, blessing and instructing novices and hearing
confessions. It was perhaps to meet the problems of the effective super-
vision of nunneries and the proper provision for them of priestly ministra-
tions that the order of Prémontré, at its beginning, admitted women to
its houses. It may be noticed, however, that the statute of the general
chapter of 1138, which forbade the admission of women, appears to deal
primarily with lay-sisters or conversae, and refers to separate nunneries
of “ singing sisters. ” Be this as it may, the custom of receiving women
did not last long. Of the very few Premonstratensian nunneries in
England, Irford in Lincolnshire appears to have been always regarded
as a dependent cell of the abbey of Newhouse; and similarly the obscure
nunnery at Guyzance in Northumberland was under the charge of the
canons of Alnwick. The nuns of Swine in Yorkshire, regarded as a
Cistercian house, were served by Premonstratensian canons during a con-
siderable period.
The double system was also attempted by Augustinian canons. It is
found for a short time in one small Yorkshire house, Marton in the forest
of Galtres ; but here the nuns, who followed Cistercian customs, were
transferred to Moxby, not far away. Again, it played a part. in the early
constitution of the congregation of Arrouaise, which had some houses in
England, and preserved a separate, though somewhat nominal, existence
until the later part of the fifteenth century. In this instance, as in that
of Prémontré, the system was not long-lived. Its success, however, was
CH, XX.


## p. 682 (#728) ############################################

682
The Order of Sempringham. Military Orders
achieved in England, though upon a small scale, by the order of
Sempringham, which was founded for nuns in 1131 by Gilbert, rector of
Sempringham in Lincolnshire. He endeavoured without success in 1147
to induce the chapter-general of Cîteaux to receive his nuns into its order.
St Bernard and Eugenius III, however, interested themselves in his
venture; and it was with the aid of St Bernard that the Gilbertine
statutes were compiled. Canons, following the Rule of St Augustine, and
conversi, dwelling in a separate cloister, formed after this date an integral
portion of each convent. Before Gilbert's death in 1188, thirteen houses
had been founded, all in the dioceses of Lincoln and York. Subsequently,
the number grew to twenty-six; but, although the double constitution
of most of the earlier houses continued until the suppression, all but two
of those established after 1188 were for canons only. The prior of the
canons in each house, where they were limited to a maximum of thirteen,
was the head of the monastery, in direct contrast to the Fontevraldine
arrangement. The order was exempt from episcopal visitation and held
its chapter-general yearly at Sempringham ; but the office of master or
general was not attached to the headship of one particular monastery,
and might fall by election on any prior or canon who was placed on the
list of suitable candidates. Outside England, the order possessed no house,
with the exception of one short-lived establishment in Scotland ; and its
English houses were few outside Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Cistercian
nunneries to which conversi were attached were numerous in the same
districts; and there are indications that for some of these, like Swine,
already mentioned, a constitution resembling that of Sempringham may
have been intended. In some, a monk or canon was frequently put in
charge of affairs, with the title of master or warden.
At the Council of Troyes in 1128, St Bernard provided the initial
suggestions for the Rule adopted by the Knights Templars, a community
- established at Jerusalem ten years earlier for the defence of pilg
The older military order, the Knights of the Hospital of St John of
Jerusalem, had some years earlier adopted a Rule modelled on that of
St Augustine, which in 1114 had been introduced into the chapter of the
church of the Holy Sepulchre. Military orders, while adopting the three
substantial vows, were not strictly monastic; the business of the knights
was warfare against infidels and heathen, and the preceptories or com-
manderies in which they were dispersed in Europe and the East were
either castles or small manor-houses with little likeness to monasteries.
In 1147 the castle of Calatrava in Castile, captured from the Moors, was
given to the Templars. They were unable to hold it, and for some years
it was defended by Cistercians, chiefly conversi, from the Abbey of Fitero
in Navarre. This was the origin of the Knights of Calatrava, whose order
was approved by Alexander III in 1164, and in 1187 was submitted to
the visitation of the Abbot of Morimond. From Calatrava arose the


## p. 683 (#729) ############################################

Military Orders and Orders of canons
683
Knights of Alcántara, formed by the reconstitution on Cistercian lines of
an order founded earlier at Pereyro in the diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo.
The Portuguese order, known from 1181 as the Knights of Avis, was
under the visitation of the Cistercian Abbot of Tarouca; in 1213 it was
subordinated to Calatrava, but re-established its independence after the
victory of Aljubarrota in 1385. Two other Portuguese orders, those of
the Wing of St Michael and of Christ, the latter founded in 1317, were
under the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Alcobaça ; while the Valencian
Knights of Montesa in 1316 received their constitution from Calatrava
and were submitted to Cistercian abbots. On the other hand, the Knights
of Santiago, founded in 1171, adopted the Rule of St Augustine, which
was also the model for the northern order of the Teutonic Knights and
the order, which they absorbed, of the Knights of the Sword in Livonia.
Various congregations of hospitallers, which afforded lodging to pilgrims
on European roads, and in some cases had originally a semi-military
character, such as the canons of Saint-Antoine in the diocese of Vienne
and of Altopascio near Lucca, and the canons and knights of the united
hospitals of the Holy Spirit at Montpellier and Santo Spirito in Sassia
at Rome, followed the Augustinian Rule.
It may be noted here that the same Rule, applicable to many diverse
communities, was employed by St Dominic in the constitution of the order
of Friars Preachers, and was followed by the order of Hermits known
popularly as Austin friars. Some orders also, which are occasionally
reckoned among friars, were in practice hardly to be differentiated from
Austin canons. Such was the Trinitarian order for the redemption of
captives, founded at the close of the twelfth century by St John of Matha
and St Felix of Valois ; the minister and brethren of their chief English
house, St Robert's at Knaresborough, were regarded as Austin canons,
and were allowed to hold and serve parish churches. Likewise, the Bons-
hommes of Ashridge and Edington, of whose ultimate origin nothing is
known, were not friars, as is sometimes said, but Austin canons; their
name appears again in the fifteenth century in Portugal, with customs
and a blue habit derived from the secular canons of San Giorgio in Alga
at Venice, and was applied later to the Minims in France. Originally
they were apparently a congregation which, observing the Rule of
St Augustine, maintained a certain individuality in habit and customs.
From the days of Benedict of Aniane to the epoch of the Cistercian
movement, the ideal at which monastic reformers aimed was uniformity
of practice by means of the congregational system. In France and Italy,
at frequent intervals, the customs of individual monasteries had been
extended to others, until groups of houses, sometimes attaining to large
numbers, had been formed. To speak of such groups as orders is hardly
accurate; medieval references to the orders of Thiron or Arrouaise may
be found, but the term can only be loosely applied to congregations whose
CH. XX.


## p. 684 (#730) ############################################

684
Orders and Congregations
polity was incomplete and the members of which had no very binding
connexion with the house whose customs they followed. On the other hand,
the congregations of Cluny and Cîteaux, with their definite organisation,
became orders in the true sense of the word ; Prémontré, Sempringham,
the orders of hermits and anchorites who adopted the cenobite life in a
modified form, were more than ordinary congregations. The history of
the Cistercian order shews clearly how a body with a complete political
system was capable of absorbing congregations whose constitution was
less sharply defined. Nevertheless, these orders, governed by their own
statutes, had no actual rule of their own. Their object was the strict
observance of the Rule of St Benedict or of St Augustine; and outside
them were the numerous monasteries which followed both these Rules,
without ties which bound them to any congregation. The abbey of
Saint-Denis might receive the customs of Cluny for a time; its great
abbot, Suger, might undertake its reform as the result of the objurgations
of St Bernard ; but it remained a Benedictine house, without entering
the Cluniac or Cistercian systems. Great English abbeys like Peterborough
and Ramsey might enter into an alliance of mutual fraternity; the customs
of Westminster might be nearly identical with those of St Augustine's
at Canterbury; but such monasteries were autonomous bodies. It was
also among these houses that the most influential and well-endowed
monasteries were to be found in the later Middle Ages. If the wealth of
Cluny was great, few of its dependencies could boast more than a modest
income. Cistercian abbevs, to judge from the revenues of English houses
at the suppression, were seldom well-to-do; and even Fountains or Furness
could not compare in income with the great Benedictine houses. The
riches of Augustinian canons, many of whose monasteries were small and
poor, were certainly not excessive; and their ecclesiastical and political
importance was small in proportion to their numbers. But such com-
munities as Cirencester and Bridlington greatly exceeded any Premon-
stratensian house in wealth. While the papal grant of the use of the
mitre to abbots and priors was a privilege which might be conferred
irrespective of orders, it was to the heads of prominent autonomous houses
that it usually fell. Again, though in the early days of the English parlia-
ment Cistercian and Premonstratensian abbots were summoned side by
side with Benedictines and Augustinians, the eventual body of spiritual
peers, in addition to the bishops, consisted, with some four exceptions,
of the chief Benedictine abbots.
Speaking generally, Benedictine and Augustinian houses were subject
to episcopal control. The local bishop confirmed elections of abbots and
priors, and held periodical visitations. A few important monasteries were
subject immediately to the Pope and had quasi-episcopal jurisdiction
within their own liberties ; in England, St Augustine's at Canterbury,
St Alban's, St Edmund's at Bury, Westminster, and Evesham, of the
Benedictines, and of the Augustinians, Waltham and St Botolph's at


## p. 685 (#731) ############################################

The Fourth Lateran Council, 1215
685
Colchester, enjoyed exemption. The exercise of control, whether by papal
legates or bishops, over monasteries in which the abbot or prior was
supreme, was always a difficult problem. The head of the house was a
constant factor in its administration; the visitor was an occasional
intruder, not always welcome, and sometimes resented by communities
which, like St Mary's at York and Glastonbury, attempted more than
once to assert that they were exempt. His injunctions had statutory
force; but bishops often found that, between visitations, their most careful
provisions for the good order of a monastery had been treated as a dead
letter.
The famous injunctions addressed by Innocent III to the Abbot and
convent of Subiaco, and preserved in the body of the Canon Law, give a
comprehensive view of the breaches of monastic order which visitors dis-
covered early in the thirteenth century; and their time-honoured language
was employed again and again, during the next three centuries, to clothe
similar ordinances where they were necessary. To remedy such irregu-
larities, Innocent III, at the Lateran Council of 1215, resorted to an
application of the congregational system. Reform which could not be
successfully effected by the ordinarius loci might be achieved by a closer
association of monasteries. Triennial chapters for Benedictines and
Augustinians respectively were established in every kingdom or separate
province, at which, on the model of Cistercian chapters-general, statutes
were to be drawn up and reforms undertaken, under the presidency of
abbots elected by the assembly. Visitors were to be appointed by the
chapters, not to supersede the ordinary visitor, but to ensure the super-
vision of monasteries by a central authority of their own.
At the same time, while the help of Cistercian abbots was recommended
in the formation of provincial chapters, no attempt at a subversion of
the autonomy of monasteries was contemplated. A federal bond was
established in each province, for the sake of greater uniformity; but
there was no permanent president or general of the federation, no affilia-
tion to any particular house whose abbot was endowed with primacy.
No effort was made to check local customs. The provincial chapter added
a new feature to the recognised order of things; the best prospect of its
success was the hope that its meetings might do something to raise and
maintain at a high level the standard of life prescribed by both Rules.
It is possible to criticise the constitutions of Cluny and Cîteaux as foreign
to the principle of self-government implied in the Rule of St Benedict.
The decree of the Lateran Council, on the other hand, contained no
revolutionary element.
Of the internal state of Benedictine and Augustinian houses in England
during the thirteenth century we have abundant information in the
episcopal registers of its second half; while the Regestrum Visitationum
of Eudes Rigaud, in the middle of the century, gives a detailed picture
of the life of Norman monasteries. The evidential value of episcopal
CH. XX.


## p. 686 (#732) ############################################

686
Monasticism in the thirteenth century
injunctions has often been disputed, on the ground of the formal language
in which they are cast, and in the absence of reports of the visitations
after which they were issued. More material is available now than formerly
for the critical study of their texts; and it is impossible to avoid the
conclusion that their language refers to faults which had actually been
discovered in the monasteries to which they were addressed. Precautionary
injunctions to a monastery against abuses from which it was entirely free
exist only in imaginations which picture medieval institutions as superior
to the ordinary rules of common sense. There is abundant proof that
these injunctions were composed, as Rigaud wrote of the typical series
directed to the monks of Saint-Ouen at Rouen in December 1949,
secundum ea que inventa fuerunt per visitacionem nostram ibidem.
The decrees of the Lateran Council were followed within little mo
more
than a quarter of a century by the statutes of Gregory IX for the reform
of the Benedictine order. These, involving detailed regulations on points
of discipline and prescribing fixed penalties for their breach, were certainly
not very sedulously regarded. Rigaud, in his visitations, frequently found
that monasteries were without copies of them; and in 1253 the Abbot
and convent of Jumièges, complaining to Innocent IV that they found
the difficulties in maintaining the order of their house much increased by
the rigid wording of the Gregorian statutes, were dispensed from observing
their contents, so far as they were not of the substance of the Rule.
Such a permission might lend itself to a very liberal interpretation. Any
attempt, indeed, to curb laxness of discipline in monasteries by hard-and-
fast legislation was impossible. The natural tendency of establishments
of old foundation was to that type of life which the monks of Fountains
in 1132 had found inadequate for their spiritual needs at York. It was
only here and there that visitors discovered monasteries which were in a
really scandalous condition. Selby, in the second half of the thirteenth
century, under the rule of unsatisfactory abbots, was anything but a
pattern of a respectable and God-fearing life to the neighbouring parts
of Yorkshire. Some of the nunneries of the diocese of Rouen had suc-
cumbed to the temptations to which undefended communities of women
were peculiarly liable. Other instances could be cited ; but the typical
faults of monasteries were failures to comply with the standard demanded
by the Rule. Heads of houses, moved by family considerations or other
inducements, admitted unsuitable persons to the novitiate and profession.
Accounts were negligently rendered; the common seal of the house was
not securely kept; slackness in the services of the church was observable;
silence was not kept in cloister and the common buildings; fasting and
the prohibition of meat were constantly disregarded. The conduct of the
scattered cells or priories attached to the greater abbeys was a difficult
problem. These, for the most part, were small establishments without
conventual buildings, committed to the charge of a prior and one or two
monks, whose main duty was that of looking after the local estates of


## p. 687 (#733) ############################################

I
Causes of the decline of discipline
687
their house and collecting their fruits. Such, with few exceptions, were
the numerous priories in England possessed by French monasteries. Some-
times, in direct contravention of the Rule, a single religious without a
companion was in charge of a priory; and, even where the requisite pair
of monks was in residence, fasts were not kept and flesh-meat was in
general use.
Monastic rules, however, are counsels of perfection ; and St Benedict
had foreseen that his disciples would have to reckon with the constant
recalcitrance of human nature. It was inevitable that some monasteries
should sink into decay and abandon discipline altogether, and that small
breaches of the Rule should become habitual in others. Of the crowds
of men and women who locked into monasteries during the periods of
Cluniac and Cistercian reform, many were doubtless prompted by a me
temporary emotion to escape from the world to refuges in the quiet of
which they hoped to save their souls, while to others the comparative
ease of a life of prayer may have outweighed its prospective hardships.
It was certain, at any rate, that no monastery could hope to be without
some unfit persons, whom it would tax the energy of the abbot to control.
Where the abbot himself was ineffective or engrossed with temporal
affairs, the sin of acedia was sure to make headway. Grumbling and
internal discord were a sure evidence of decline; if, as Rigaud found,
the custom of making open complaints in chapter had fallen into disuse,
private animosities Hourished instead; and where, as at Bardney, in the
last years of the thirteenth century, a convent was openly at war with a
tactless and overbearing abbot, and the strife became matter of common
talk, or where, as at Fountains in the same period, the house was so
deeply in debt that the Crown found it necessary to appoint an official -
receiver, the reputation of a monastery was seriously injured.
The growth of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century diverted
popular enthusiasm from the monastic orders proper. While the Cister-
cians continued, year after year, to found new monasteries, their rate of
progress was much slower than it had been at first; and the other orders
were much less active. They had become part of the established condition
of things; and the benefactions which had placed them in possession of
lands and churches were less numerous than formerly, and were being
diverted into other channels. The popularity of the friars was not likely
to leave the conduct of the older orders without criticism : it is significant
that the two visitors of monasteries at this time from whom we have the
most ample records, Archbishops Rigaud and Peckham, were both Fran-
ciscans whose zeal in commenting upon monastic abuses can hardly, with
the best intentions, have been free from the prejudices of their early
training
By this time, great and far-reaching reforms like those of Cluny and
Cîteaux were no longer to be contemplated. The unsettled state of society
which had contributed to their success was at an end ; with the growth
CH. XX.


## p. 688 (#734) ############################################

688
Later Orders in Italy
of national institutions and sentiment, the development of another world-
wide order, breaking down the barriers of race under the protection of
a universal Church, was as impossible as a new crusade. The old quarrel
between the keys and the sword was to enter upon a new phase as a
merely political contest, the points at issue in which were to be debated
by jurists and publicists, and were not to be decided by the missionaries
of religion. Henceforward, new orders were of a purely local character,
and their outposts beyond the country in which they took birth were
few. Reform, moreover, acquired a tendency to lay stress on certain
definite points, such as strict enclosure and the change of heads of houses
at regularly recurring intervals, which indicate a movement in a different
direction from that of the older reforms.
From time to time, new movements, somewhat on the lines of Camaldoli
and Vallombrosa, achieved some success in Italy. In the early part of
the twelfth century the hermit John of Matera founded the order of
Pulsano in Apulia ; and his friend and companion, William of Vercelli,
the founder of Monte Vergine, became the first general of an order which,
with the encouragement of King Roger, was well received in Sicily. The
monasteries founded in Calabria and the Basilicata from Flora, the
retreat of the famous hermit Gioacchino (Joachim) before 1192, were
affected by the influence of the Cistercian monasteries in which he had
lived, and interpreted the Rule of St Benedict with such austerity that
Gregory IX forbade migrations from them to Cistercian houses, as in-
fringing the prohibition to monks to pass from one order to another of
less strict observance. The Rule of St Benedict was also adopted in 1231
at Monte Fano by Silvestro Gozzolini, the founder of the Silvestrines or
Blue Benedictines. Rather more than twenty years later, another order of
Benedictinised hermits gathered together under Peter of Morrone. After
his election to the Papacy in 1294, his monks took the name of Celestines.
During his short and inglorious tenure of his office as Pope, he introduced
Celestines into Monte Cassino, from which they were quickly removed by
Boniface VIII. The order, however, survived its founder and established
houses in France and Germany. All these orders were Neapolitan in
origin; but in 1313 another was born further north, at Acona in the
diocese of Arezzo, to which Bernardo Tolomei and two Sienese noblemen
retired. This was the beginning of the strict order of Monte Oliveto, the
name given to Acona from the olive-groves which recalled the memory
of our Lord's agony in Gethsemane. It had a considerable vogue in Italy,
and was permitted to receive members from other orders, the Carthusian
excepted.
A comprehensive attempt at monastic reform was made by the Cis-
tercian Benedict XII, formerly Abbot of Fontfroide in the diocese of
Narbonne. His constitutions for the Cistercian order, Fulgens sicut stella,
issued in July 1335, are chiefly remarkable for their regulations against
the indiscriminate use of flesh-meat, which had been introduced into certain


## p. 689 (#735) ############################################

The Benedictine Constitutions, 1336 and 1339
689
monasteries, on the plea of custom, upon certain days in the week. It
was now banished from the refectory, but permitted, with no very stringent
restrictions, in the common hall of the infirmary and at the abbot's table
in his lodging; while all flesh-meat was to be cooked in the special kitchen
attached to the infirmary. Benedict also attempted to check the con-
struction of private rooms or cells, which led to irregularities. A separate
lodging for the abbot had become, in all orders, a permissible transgression
of the Rule, due to the necessities of his office; and separate chambers in
the infirmary were a convenience that could not easily be disallowed.
The division of the dormitory into cubicles was absolutely prohibited ;
but the prohibition, if observed for a time, was soon disregarded. Clauses
against private allowances to monks and the distribution of dividends
between the abbot and convent were directed against the growth of pro-
prietas ; and safeguards were enforced for the financial administration of
monasteries.
The constitutions for Black monks (Benedictines and Cluniacs), issued
in 1336, and for Austin canons, in 1339, re-enacted the order for triennial
chapters, establishing thirty-nine Benedictine and twenty-two Augustinian
provinces. These constitutions formed the chief basis on which later
visitors of monasteries framed their enquiries. With regard to such
customs as the use of flesh-meat their provisions were cautious and lenient;
but cells in the dormitory, except for the old and infirm, were as strictly
forbidden as in Cistercian houses. The maintenance of the common life
and the expulsion of customs tending to the acquisition of private property
were insisted upon. Secular persons were, as far as possible, to be banished
from the company of the brethren; and monks and canons were not per-
mitted to go outside their monasteries without reasonable cause or without
a companion. The integrity of monastic property might not be broken
without the deliberation and consent of the whole or a majority of the
community; the danger of indiscriminate or improperly conducted sales
and leases of land was, as contemporary and later documents shew, one
that could not be too sedulously anticipated. While, especially in the
case of canons, residence outside monasteries on benefices or in priories
was recognised as part of the order of things, it was essential that the
numbers of each community should be kept up to their full strength.
For monasteries which might decay in observance or in financial resources,
regulations were made for bringing in new blood in the first case, and for
union with other houses in the second.
Most important are the long and full chapters providing for the
support of student monks and canons at universities. Each house of
twenty members was to send one ; each of above twenty, one or more,
according to its resources. Already the Benedictine house at Oxford,
Gloucester Hall, had been founded for English monks; and, after the
publication of these constitutions, the house for Durham monks came
into existence. At Cambridge, no special Benedictine college was founded
C. MED, H. VOL. V. CH. XX.


## p. 690 (#736) ############################################

690
State of learning in monasteries
till the next century; but monks from various East Anglian houses went
there earlier, and Benedictines from Norwich, for example, were to be
found at Edmund Gonville's Hall of the Annunciation. If these provisions
were adhered to, the ordinary monastery of any size would usually contain
a few monks who had made a study of theology or Canon Law under
qualified teachers; and in later years we frequently find abbots and priors
with university degrees, such as William Welles, Abbot of St Mary's,
York, who was one of the English envoys to the Council of Basle. Welles
and two other abbots of St Mary's with similar qualifications were
promoted to bishoprics ; St Albans, Gloucester, and other houses also
furnished bishops from among their abbots. On the other hand, fifteenth-
century visitors in England found this statute often neglected ; and in
1438 there occurs the case of a young monk of Spalding who, sent to the
university, found his means of support withheld, and was obliged to
maintain himself by pawning the books which he had borrowed for his
studies from the convent library. Similarly, the constitution which
ordained that a teacher should be provided in the monastery for novices
and others who wished to learn was often imperfectly observed. If there
were learned men in monasteries in the later Middle Ages, it is impossible
to avoid the conclusion that monasteries as a whole were not homes of
learning. The remarkable activity of monastic chroniclers ceases, with a
few exceptions, as the fourteenth century advances ; and, if libraries were
still enriched with manuscripts and churches with splendid office-books
like the Westminster and Sherborne missals, there is no indication that
the gifts of writing and illuminating were general. The detailed reports
of visitations of monasteries by Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln (1436-1449)
leave the impression that learning in religious houses was somewhat de-
ficient. In only three houses was a monk or canon invited to deliver the
visitation sermon; and it is significant that when some monks at Bardney
wished to draw up a charter, for which they had fraudulently procured
the common seal, none of them knew how to do it, and the blank parch-
ment had to be sent to a notary in Lincoln. Neither the Benedictine
constitutions nor visitation documents contain information which warrants
the supposition, often stated as a fact, that monasteries undertook the
education of the children of the neighbourhood. Both are explicit upon the
undesirability of admitting secular persons into a monastery ; episcopal
visitors sedulously strove to limit the admission of children as boarders
in nunneries, which was a source of pecuniary profit to the house, as such
children generally came from well-to-do families, and afforded more dis-
traction to the nuns than benefit to their young lodgers. So far as the
maintenance and education of poor children in the almonries of monasteries
was concerned, the custom was gradually falling into disuse in the fifteenth
century. Alnwick found, in more than one instance, that their numbers
were smaller than those which monasteries could afford to support; and
the few maintained at Leicester simply acted as errand-boys for the canons.


## p. 691 (#737) ############################################

Evidence of visitation documents
691
Visitation reports and injunctions also disclose that the Benedictine
constitutions were constantly transgressed by convents in need of ready
inoney. The bad habit of granting corrodies or allowances in money and
victuals to secular persons was forced upon monasteries by patrons who
wished to provide for clerks or old servants at a minimum of expense to
themselves. But corrodies could also be sold to applicants, and thus a
convent was often burdened with a number of lodgers and pensioners
who had paid a lump sum for their privileges and became the actual
profiters by the speculation. Property suffered by sales and disadvan-
tageous leases ; timber was cut down and sold before it was ready for
felling. In these circumstances, monastic finance became a difficult
problem ; the status domus often shewed a deficit, and efforts to cut down
expenses, where habits of life had become fixed, were unavailing. The
evidence shews that the management of finance constantly fell into the
hands of a few, who did much as they chose; a masterful abbot or prior
could obtain possession of the purse of the convent, or a weak one could
leave it to the control of obedientiaries who squandered money and
rendered few or no accounts. Petitions for the appropriation of churches
contain statements of poverty brought about by the decay of property,
rises in prices, heavy taxation, and the exercise of the duty of hospitality
to all and sundry, a duty which was profitable where a monastery was
a centre of pilgrimage, but irksome where it merely was a resort of casual
travellers. But there is no doubt that poverty was the result of careless
finance, and, as was natural, brought general negligence and other evils
in its train. Even in well-managed and prosperous monasteries, the state
of things offered a strange contrast to the requirements of the Rule. The
appropriation of a considerable part of the common fund to the abbot,
who kept a large household of knights, squires, and grooms, and had his
own staff of obedientiaries chosen from the monks, his frequent journeys
to London and his manor-houses, were incentives to his monks to live
luxuriously, to acquire private property, and to stray outside their house
at pleasure. Too much stress may be laid upon the faults of individuals;
for a visitor's business was to lay stress on such faults, and he did not
waste time in praising cloistered virtue. It was rarely in England that
a great monastery was found in such a lamentable state of disorder as
existed at Ramsey in 1437, though serious irregularities in smaller houses
were not uncommon. It may certainly, however, be said that the patriarchs
of western monachism, if they could have visited such eminent houses as
Westminster, Durham, or Glastonbury in the fourteenth or fifteenth
centuries, would hardly have concluded that they were fulfilling their
vocation.