No More Learning

34-2


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532
Early Italian and African Monachism
a great monastery of men; at Ravenna and Pavia and many other
towns.
Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli (d. 371), introduced a change in the idea
of the monastic life that merits for him a more prominent place among
monastic legislators than is commonly accorded to him: he combined
the elerical and monastic states, making the clerics of his cathedral live
together in community according to the monastic rule. This was the
starting-point of the practice destined to prevail both in West and East,
whereby monks as by ordinary rule become priests, though it was several
centuries before the custom was established.
It was in the form initiated by Eusebius at Vercelli that the monastic
life was introduced into Africa by St Augustine on his return from Italy
in 388. In 391 he was ordained presbyter at Hippo and established a
community of clerics living together according to rule; and when in
396 he became bishop of Hippo, he continued to follow the same manner
of life along with his clerics. Several bishops went forth from this
community to other sees, and in most cases they established similar
monasteries of clerics in their episcopal cities. This union of the
clerical and monastic lives was widely prevalent in Africa, and it became
the exemplar both of the institution of secular canons in the Carolingian
reform, and of that of canons regular, or Augustinian canons, in the
Hildebrandine.
Monasteries of the type normal in those days also arose in Africa.
-- In the times of Tertullian and Cyprian veiled virgins were recognised ;
but it is doubtful whether they had developed into a proper monastic
system before St Augustine's time. During his episcopate there certainly
were many nunneries, one being presided over by his sister; and his
Letter 211—the only authentic “ Rule of St Augustine "—was written
for the guidance of a nunnery. Thus in the early years of the fifth
century monachism was strong and flourishing in the African Church.
The beginnings of Spanish monachism are obscure, and the records
scanty. The first reference is a canon of the Council of Zaragoza in
380, forbidding clerics to become monks: this shews that the monastic
institute must by that date have spread considerably in Spain ; but there
seems to be no extant evidence of the existence of a monastery in Spain
till the beginning of the sixth century. There is a tradition that then
one Donatus carried monasticism from Africa into Spain; but the names
to be associated with early Spanish monachism are Martin, bishop of
Braga, a Pannonian and the apostle of the Arian Sueves, who died in
580, and Fructuosus, also bishop of Braga, about a century later. The
latter was the great organiser and propagator of monachism in the
Peninsula, establishing several monasteries and writing (probably) two
rules for their guidance. It is chiefly from these rules that we get
glimpses of the earlier Spanish monachism. It seems to have been a


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Spanish and Keltic Monachism
533
common practice for a man to call his house a “monastery,” and to live
in it with his wife, children and servants : against this abuse, and others,
St Fructuosus legislates. One feature of his Rule is unique: it contains
a pact between the abbot and monks, whereby the latter bind themselves
to the performance of the duties of the monastic life under the abbot,
and empower him to inflict specified punishments for certain offences
and on the other hand reserve to themselves, in case the abbot should
act in an arbitrary or tyrannical way, the right of appeal to other abbots
or to the bishop. St Fructuosus lived a century after St Benedict's
death ; but throughout the Gothic period there is no trace of Benedictine
monachism in Spain. In the extant rules of Spanish origin—those of
Leander, of Isidore, and of Fructuosus—it is possible to discern certain
reminiscences which betray a knowledge of the Benedictine Rule; but
Mabillon greatly exaggerates their significance. These rules are in no
sense declarations or commentaries on St Benedict's, and Spanish
monachism was not at all Benedictine before the time of the Christian
Reconquest. Early Spanish monachism was indigenous, and it retained
its individuality till the fall of the Gothic kingdom.
Our only
glimpses of it have to be obtained through these later rules, and so it
has been necessary to carry our view forward beyond the strict limits of
this survey. It may
be doubted whether monasteries were numerous in
the Gothic period: the Councils of Toledo throughout the seventh century
used to be attended by fifty or sixty bishops; but there were never
more than ten abbots present, and often only six, or five, or four.
We have little information concerning the origins of monachism in
the Keltic lands, though the system played a prominent part in the
Christianising of most of them. It seems that the earliest Keltic
monasteries were missionary stations, closely connected with the tribal
system. St Patrick, who had passed some years as a monk in Lerins
(see below), built up the Irish Church in large measure on a monastic ·
framework, and this initial tendency became more and more accentuated,
till the bishops came to be subordinated to the abbots of the great
monasteries. Our first definite knowledge of an organised cenobitical
life in Ireland comes to us from the sixth century, during the course of
which several great monasteries were established in various parts of the
island, some of them counting more than a thousand monks. But any
full knowledge of early Irish monachism has to be gathered, not on
Irish soil, but from the documents connected with St Columba, who
towards the end of the sixth century established a great monastery in
the island of Iona or Hy, the missionary influence whereof spread over
southern Scotland and northern England; and from the documents
connected with St Columbanus, who early in the seventh century founded
a number of Irish monasteries in Central Europe. St Columbanus' Rule
is the only Irish monastic rule, properly so called, that has come down
to us from the early period of Irish monachism: it was not composed
CH. XVIII.


## p. 534 (#564) ############################################

1
534
Keltic and Gallic Monachism
in Ireland, but undoubtedly it embodies the Irish traditions of monasticism
and ascetical discipline. Irish cenobitical life as seen in these documents,
was one of extreme rigor and austerity. At all times the eremitical life
had a great vogue in Keltic monachism ; and in spite of all difficulties
of climate, the Irish hermits successfully rivalled in their extraordinary
penances and austerities and vigils, the hermits of Egypt, and even
those of Syria. In Ireland, where the population continued purely
Keltic, the Irish rules and Irish monasticism maintained themselves
throughout the Middle Ages ; but in England and on the Continent,
where they came into contact with populations Teutonic or teutonised,
they succumbed before the Roman Rule of St Benedict.
Gaul is the country of Western Europe in which early monachism
was most widely propagated and flourished most, and for which the
records of pre-Benedictine monachism are the most abundant. It is
said that St Athanasius introduced the knowledge of the monastic life
at Trier during his exile there (336–7); and the well-known story
of St Augustine's conversion shews that before the end of the century
there were monks living an eremitical life there.
But it is with the name of St Martin of Tours that the beginnings
of Gallic monachism are rightly associated. A Pannonian by race, born
early in the fourth century, he had practised the monastic life for some
years before becoming bishop of Tours in 372. Nearly ten years earlier he
had established a monastery near Poitiers, and on becoming bishop of Tours
he formed one just outside of his episcopal city, at the place afterwards
called Marmoutier. Here he gathered together eighty monks, and lived
with them a life of great solitude and austerity. They dwelt singly in caves
and huts, meeting only for the church services and for meals ; they fasted
rigorously and prayed long-it was indeed a reproduction of the life of
the Egyptian monks. Our information concerning this earliest Gallic
monachism is mainly derived from the writings of St Martin's biographer,
Sulpitius Severus, and from his correspondence with St Paulinus of Nola.
From these sources we learn that by the end of the fourth century
monasteries and monks and nuns were already numerous not only in the
province of Tours, but in Rouen and the territory that afterwards
became Normandy and Picardy.
The beginning of the fifth century witnessed the inauguration of
monachism in Provence, at Marseilles under the influence of John
Cassian, and in the island of Lerins under that of Honoratus. From
Lerins went forth a number of monk-bishops, who throughout the fifth
and sixth centuries, by the monasteries they set up in their episcopal
cities, and by the monastic rules they composed for their government,
spread far and wide through south-eastern Gaul the influence and ideas
of Lerins. In other parts of Gaul, too, monasteries arose in the fifth
century, the most famous being Condat in the Jura mountains.
After the Frankish conquest of Gaul and under the early Mero-


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Monachism in Frankland
535
vingian kings the monastic movement continued throughout the sixth
century to spread all over Frankland. A twofold tendency set in-one
towards relaxation of life and observance; the other towards the
eremitical life and the extremest forms of asceticism, such as are met
with among the Syrian hermits. Gregory of Tours gives numerous
examples of hermits, especially in Auvergne, who in their fantastic
austerities equalled those of Syria ; and his evidence is corroborated by
other documents. It was not till the seventh century that Benedictine
monachism got a foothold in Gaul, and about the same time
St Columbanus imported his Rale and manner of life from Ireland.
For a time the three forms of monachism—the old Gallic, the Colum-
banian, and the Benedictine-existed side by side in Gaul. In order to
understand why the Benedictine gradually and inevitably supplanted
the earlier monachisms in France, in Italy, and in England, and was
destined to become the only monachism of Teutonic Europe, it is
necessary to survey the character of the earlier types. The early African
and Spanish monachisms were swept away by Vandals
and Moors; the
Irish remained insular and isolated from the great currents of monastic
development, so that Italy, France and England are the countries in
which the transformation of the earlier types of Western monachism
into the Benedictine was worked out.
It has to be remembered that in those days neither in the West
nor in the East, outside the Pachomian system, was there anything
resembling the present Western idea of different “Orders” of monks
there was only the monastic order. Monasteries were autonomous, each
having its own practices and its own rule, or selection of rules, depending
mainly on the abbot's choice. Before St Benedict's time there were
current in the West translations of certain Eastern rules-that of
Pachomius, translated by Jerome; that of Basil, translated by Rufinus ;
and a rule attributed to Macarius. There was a rule made up out of
the writings of Cassian ; there was St. Augustine's Letter (No. 211) on
the government of a nunnery. It is doubtful whether Honoratus of
Ierins wrote a rule. The only extant Western rules, properly so called,
which are certainly earlier than St Benedict's, are that of Caesarius of
Arles for monks and his somewhat longer rule for nuns; but these are
quite short, and not one of the rules that came into contact with
St Benedict's in his own time, or for a century afterwards, not even the
Rule of Columbanus, could claim to be an ordered and practical code of
laws regulating the life and working of a monastery. This St Benedict's
Rule pre-eminently was ; and the fact that it supplied so great a want
doubtless was one of the chief reasons why it supplanted all its rivals.
But there was another and still more powerful reason: St Benedict
was the man who adapted monasticism to Western ideas and Western
needs. Monasticism in Italy and Gaul was an Eastern importation, and
up to St Benedict it bore the marks of its origin. The life of the hermits
V
CH, XVIII.


## p. 536 (#566) ############################################

536
St Benedict eliminates Eastern elements
1
79
of the Egyptian deserts, with their prolonged fasts and vigils and their
other bodily austerities, was looked upon as the highest ideal—the true
ideal-of the monastic life; and the monks of Italy and Gaul endeavoured
to emulate a manner of life hard enough in oriental climes, but doubly
hard in Western Europe. This straining after severe bodily austerities
can clearly be discerned in the fragmentary records that have survived
of pre-Benedictine monachism in Italy and France, where the practice of
a purely eremitical life was very common.
St Benedict, while recognising the eremitical life, says definitely that
he legislates for cenobites only; moreover he did away with the oriental
spirit of rivalry in asceticism, whereby the monks used to vie with one
another in their mortifications. St Benedict laid down the principle
that all should live by the Rule and conform themselves in all things to
the life of the community; and even during Lent, when the undertaking
of some extra mortification was recommended, it was all to be under the
abbot's control. Moreover the common community life which St Benedict
established in his monasteries, was not one of great severity: a hard life
it was of course, and one of self-denial; but if judged by the ideals and
ideas current in his day, his Rule must have appeared to his contemporaries
to be in the matter of diet, of sleep, of work, and of hours of prayer,
nothing else than what he describes it—"A little rule for beginners.
Italian and French monks were at that time trying to live up to
ideals that were impossible for most in the Western lands, and the
general failure was producing a widespread disorganisation and decay.
St Benedict came and eliminated these incongruous Eastern elements,
and made a reconstruction of the monastic life admirably suited to
Western, and especially to Teutonic, conditions. To this must be
attributed in greatest measure the success achieved by his Rule.
St Benedict was born in Nursia, near Spoleto, probably about the
year 480; he was of a noble Umbrian family, and he was sent to Rome
to follow the courses in the schools. The licentiousness there prevalent
made him determine to withdraw not only from Rome, but also from
the world, and to become a monk. Full of this idea he fled away from
Rome to the Sabine hills, and buried himself in a cave overlooking Nero's
artificial lake on the Anio at Subiaco, forty miles from Rome. It is
probable that he was not a mere boy, but a youth old enough to have
become enamoured with a lady in Rome : consequently the date was within
years
of 500. There can be no doubt that the Sacro Speco at
Subiaco is the cave inhabited by St Benedict during the first years of
his monastic life; its solitude was complete, and the wild severe grandeur
of the surrounding scenery was well calculated to inspire his young heart
with deep religious feeling. In this cave he lived for three years, only a
single monk of a monastery in the neighbourhood knowing of his
existence and supplying him with the necessaries of life. It is not a
little remarkable that he who was destined to turn Western monasticism
a
a few


## p. 537 (#567) ############################################

St Benedict's Life
537
a
a
definitely away from the eremitical ideal, should himself, as a matter of
course, have gone to live as a hermit on determining to become a monks
it was only after very thorough personal experience of the hermit's life
that St Benedict decided it was not to be for his disciples.
In another matter also did he turn his back on his own early ideas:
after passing three years of solitude in his cave, his existence gradually
became known and disciples flocked to him in such numbers that he was
able to establish not only a monastery ruled over by himself, but also
twelve others in the neighbourhood, over which he exercised the sort
of control which the superior-general of a group or congregation of
monasteries would now be said to exercise. But when he was compelled
to leave Subiaco, and migrated to Monte Cassino, he confined himself
exclusively to the government of his own community there, without
continuing to exercise control over the other monasteries he had founded.
And so his Rule is concerned with the government of a single monastery
only, without any provision for the grouping of monasteries into congrega-
tions or orders, as became the vogue later on in the West. This
continued the Benedictine practice for many centuries ; during the
greatest period of Black Monk history the great Benedictine houses
stood in isolation, each self-governed and self-contained. It was not till
the thirteenth century that, under the inspiration of Cluny and Citeaux,
the policy was adopted of federating the Benedictine abbeys of the
different ecclesiastical provinces; and to this day the essential autonomy
of each house is the foundation stone and central idea of Black Monk
polity.
It is impossible to fix the date at which St Benedict founded his
monastery at Monte Cassino-probably about 520. He lived there
till his death, and Monte Cassino is the place above all others associated
with his name. The rest of his life was quite uneventful; in 543 he was
visited by Totila, and he died about the middle of the century.
As Benedictine life soon became, and for well-nigh seven centuries
continued to be, the norm of monastic life in the Latin Church, it will
be to the point to give a rough picture of the daily life that obtained in
St Benedict's monasteries, as it may be reconstructed from the Rule.
St Benedict's monks rose early in the morning—usually about 2, but
the hour varied with the season of the year. They had had, however,
an ample period of unbroken sleep, usually not less than 8 hours: the
midnight office between two periods of sleep, so common a feature of
later monasticism in the West, had no place in Benedictine life as
conceived by St Benedict. The monks repaired to the church for the
night office, which consisted of fourteen psalms, and certain readings
from Scripture; it was chanted throughout, and must have taken from
an hour to an hour and a half. It was followed by a break, which
varied from a few minutes in the summer to a couple of hours at mid-
winter, and which was devoted to private reading of Scripture, or
!
CA. XVIII.


## p. 538 (#568) ############################################

538
Daily Life in St Benedict's Monasteries
prayer. The Matin office, now called Lauds, was celebrated at dawn,
and Prime at sunrise ; each took about half an hour. Prime was
followed by work-i. e. field work for most of the monks-or reading,
according to the time of the year; and these exercises filled up the time
till dinner, which was at 12 or at 3, the short offices of Tierce, Sext and
None being celebrated in the church at the appropriate hours. In
summer, when the night sleep was short, the usual Italian siesta was
allowed after dinner. The afternoon was passed in work and reading,
like the forenoon. Vespers or Evensong was sung some time before
sunset, and in the summer was followed by an evening meal. Before dark,
while there yet was enough light to read by, they assembled once again
in the church, and after a few pages had been read, Compline was said,
and they retired to rest in the dusk, before there was need of an artificial
light. On Sundays there was no work, and the time assigned to the
church services and to reading was considerably lengthened.
According to St Benedict's scheme of the monastic life, work
occupied notably more time daily than either the church services or
reading; and this work was manual, either in the fields or garden, or
about the house. This element of work was intended to be an integral
part of the life; not a mere occupation, but a very real factor of the
monk's service of God, and from six to seven hours were devoted to it
daily. These long hours of manual labour, coupled with the unbroken
fast till midday, or 3 p. m. , or even till sunset during Lent, and the
perpetual abstinence from flesh meat, may convey the impression that,
after all, the life in St Benedict's monastery was one of great bodily
austerity. But it has to be remembered that though members of
patrician families were to be found in his community, still the great
majority was recruited from the ranks of the Italian peasantry, or from
those of the Goths and other barbarians who were then overrunning
Italy. Neither the fasting nor the abstinence from meat would appear
to Italian peasants in the present day, and still less in the sixth century,
so onerous as they do to us in northern climes.
The other exercise of the monks, outside the direct worship of God,
was reading, to which from three to five hours were assigned daily,
according to the season. There can be little doubt that this reading
was wholly devotional, confined to the Bible and the writings of the
fathers, St Basil and Cassian being recommended by name. Out of this
germ grew in the course of ages those works of erudition and of historical
science with which the Benedictine name in later ages became associated :
the first step forward along the path of monastic studies was taken not
by St Benedict, but by his younger contemporary Cassiodorus in his
Calabrian monastery at Squillace.
But the chief work of the monk was, in St Benedict's eyes, neither
field work nor literary work : all the services of Benedictines to civilisa-
tion and education and letters have been but by-products. Their


## p. 539 (#569) ############################################

Benedictine Work and Government
539
primary and essential work is what St Benedict calls the “Work of
God "--Opus Dei—the daily chanting of the canonical Office in the
choir. To this work he says nothing is to be preferred, and this principle
has been the keynote of Benedictine life throughout the ages.
The
daily “course” of psalmody ordinarily consisted of 40 psalms with
certain canticles, hymns, responses, prayers, and lections from Scripture
and the fathers. It was divided into the eight canonical hours, the
Vigils or night office being considerably the longest. It is probable that
this daily common prayer took some 4 to 44 hours, being chanted
throughout, and not merely recited in a monotone. Mass was celebrated
only on Sundays and holy-days. Private prayer was taken for granted,
and was provided for, but not legislated for, being left to personal
devotion.
The abbot governed the monastery with full patriarchal authority.
He was elected by the monks, and held office for life. All the officials
of the monastery were appointed by him, and were removable at his
will. He should take counsel with his monks—in matters of moment
with the whole community, in lesser matters with a few seniors. He
was bound to listen to what each had to say; but at the end, it rested
with him to decide what was to be done, and all had to obey. The
great-in a sense it might be said, the only-restraining influence upon
the abbot to which St Benedict appeals, was that of religion—the abiding
sense, impressed on him again and again by St Benedict, that he was directly
and personally responsible, and would have to answer before the judg-
ment seat of God for all his actions, for all his judgments, nay, even for
the soul of each one of his monks as well as for his own. But his
government must be according to the Rule, and not at his own mere
will and pleasure, as had been the case in the earlier forms of monachism;
and he is warned not to overburden his monks, or overdrive them, but
to be considerate always and give no one cause for just complaint. The
chapters specially written for the abbot (2, 3, 27, 64) are the most
characteristic in the Rule, and form a body of wise counsel, not easily to
be surpassed, for anyone in office or authority of any kind. This forma-
tion of a regular order of life according to rule, this provision for the
disciplined working of a large establishment, was St Benedict's great
contribution to Western monachism, and also to Western civilisation.
For as Benedictine abbeys came gradually to be established more and
more thickly in the midst of the wild Teutonic populations that were
settling throughout Western Europe, they became object-lessons in
disciplined and well-ordered life, in organised work, in all the arts of
peace, that could not but impress powerfully the minds of the surround-
ing barbarians, and bring home to them ideals of peace and order and
work, no less than of religion.
Another point of far-reaching consequence was that St Benedict laid
upon the monk the obligation of abiding till death, not only in the
ze
CH. XVIII.


## p. 540 (#570) ############################################

540
St Benedict's Theory and Rule
monastic life, but in his own monastery in which he was professed. This
special Benedictine vow of stability cut off what was the very common
practice of monks, when they grew dissatisfied in one monastery, going
to another. St Benedict bound the monks of a monastery together
into a permanent family, united by bonds that lasted for life. This
idea that the monks of each Benedictine monastery form a permanent
community, distinct from that of every other Benedictine monastery,
is a characteristic feature of Benedictine monachism, and a chief dis-
tinction between it and the mendicant and other later Orders; without
doubt it has also been the great source of the special influence and
strength of the Benedictines in history.
Another distinction lies in the fact that St Benedict, in common with
the early monastic legislators, set before his monks no special object or
purpose, no particular work to be done, other than the common work of
monks-the living in community according to the “evangelical counsels,"
and thereby sanctifying their souls and serving God. " A school of the
service of the Lord” is St Benedict's definition of a monastery, and the
one thing he requires from the novice is that “in very deed he seek
God. " Nothing probably was further from his thoughts than that his
monks were to become apostles, bishops, popes, civilisers, educators,
scholars, men of learning. His idea simply was to make them good):
and if a man is good, he will do good. The ascetical side of the training
in the Rule lies chiefly in obedience and humility. The very definition
of a monk is “ one who renounces his own wishes, and comes to fight for
Christ, taking up the arms of obedience”; it is the temper of renuncia-
tion and obedience rather than the actual obeying that is of value. The
chapter on humility (7), the longest in the Rule, has become a classic in
Christian ascetical literature; it embodies St Benedict's teaching on the
spiritual life. The general spirit of the Rule is beautifully summed
up in the short chapter “on the good zeal which monks ought to have”
(72): “ As there is an evil and bitter emulation which separates from
God and leads to hell, so there is a good spirit of emulation which frees
from vices and leads to God and life everlasting. Let monks therefore
practise this emulation with most fervent love; that is to say, let them
in honour prefer one another. Let them bear most patiently with each
other's infirmities, whether of body or of character. Let them contend
with one another in their obedience. Let no one follow what he thinks
most profitable to himself, but rather what is best for another. Let
them shew brotherly charity with a chaste love. Let them fear God
and love their abbot with sincere and humble affection, and set nothing
whatever before Christ, Who can bring us unto eternal life'. "
In view of the great influence exercised on the course of European
history and civilisation in things both ecclesiastical and civil, from the
· Abbot Gasquet's translation.


## p. 541 (#571) ############################################

--
Spread of the Benedictine Rule
541
sixth century to the thirteenth, by St Benedict and his sons, it seemed
proper to supply the foregoing somewhat detailed account of the Bene-
dictine Rule and life. With an outline sketch of the steps whereby
St. Benedict's supremacy in Western monachism was achieved, this
chapter will be concluded.
Though the Rule was written as a code of regulations for the
government of one monastery, it is evident that St Benedict contemplated
the likelihood of its being observed in different monasteries, and even in
different countries. Besides Monte Cassino, his own monastery at Subiaco,
and perhaps the twelve others, continued after he had left them; and
there is mention of one founded by him from Monte Cassino, at Terracina.
These are the only Benedictine monasteries of which there is any
record
as existing in St Benedict's lifetime, for the stories of the missions of
St Placidus to Sicily and St Maurus to Gaul must be regarded as
apocryphal. It is said of Simplicius, the third abbot of Monte Cassino,
that “he propagated into all the hidden work of the master"; and this
has been understood as indicating that the spread of the Rule to other
monasteries began in his abbacy. But the historical determining point
was the sacking of Monte Cassino by the Lombards about 580-590,
when the monks fled to Rome, and were placed in a monastery attached
to the Lateran Basilica, in the heart of Latin Christendom, under the
eyes of the Popes. It is now generally agreed by critical students of the
period that the monachism which St Gregory the Great established in his
palace on the Coelian Hill, wherein he himself became a monk, was in an
adequate and true sense Benedictine, being based on that Rule which
St Gregory eulogises as “conspicuous for its discretion. ” From the
Coelian Hill it was carried to England by Augustine, the prior of the
monastery, and his companions (596), and it is probable that the monastery
of SS. Peter and Paul, later St Augustine's, Canterbury, was the first
Benedictine monastery out of Italy. As has been said above, it was not
till the seventh century that Benedictine monachism got a foothold
in Gaul; but during that century it spread steadily and at last rapidly
throughout Gaul and England, and from England it was carried into
Friesland and the other Germanic lands by the great English Benedictine
missioners, Willibrod, Boniface, and the rest. Being well adapted to
the spirit and character of the Teutonic peoples then overrunning Western
Europe, the Benedictine Rule inevitably and quickly absorbed and sup-
planted all those previously in vogue—so completely that Charles the
Great could ask the question, if there had ever been any other monastic
Rule than St Benedict's? The Benedictines shared fully in the effects of
the Carolingian revival, and from that date, for three centuries, St Bene-
dict's spirit ruled supreme throughout Western monachism, Ireland alone
excepted.
All through the Benedictine centuries, Benedictine nuns flourished
no less than Benedictine monks, and nowhere more than in England.
CH, XVIII.


## p. 542 (#572) ############################################

542
Benedictine Nuns. Conclusion
St Boniface's correspondence with several Anglo-Saxon nuns, both in
England and in Germany, reveals the high standards of education
and of life that prevailed in the English nunneries. Communities of
Benedictine nuns have in all ages been predominantly ladies, recruited
from the upper classes, and the life is specially adapted for them.
Naturally it has been a more secluded life than that of the monks; but
the great Benedictine nunneries have always exercised considerable
religious and social influence.
In the foregoing pages the ideals of the various phases of early
monasticism have been set forth. It is not pretended that these ideals
have always been realised by monks. But it is right to estimate a
system in large measure by its ideals, except where failure adequately
to realise them has predominated. That this has been the case with
Christian monachism as a whole will hardly now be contended by any
historian.
1


## p. 543 (#573) ############################################

543
CHAPTER XIX.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.
THE ancients saw in the stupendous destiny of the Roman State the
clue to the history of the Universe and a revelation of the plans of
Providence in regard to the world. “ Italy," wrote Pliny the elder in
the time of Vespasian, “has been selected by Deity in order to collect
dispersed power, to soften customs and to unite by the communion of one
language the various and barbarous dialects of so many nations, to
bestow on men the intercourse of ideas and humanity, in a word—that
all the races of the world should have one fatherland” (Hist. Nat. 11. 6).
For Christians the conquest of the world by Rome had even a deeper
meaning.
“Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, who as it were
associated in one monarchy the immense multitude of men dispersed
about the earth, because a plurality of kingdoms would have been an
obstacle to the diffusion of Christ's doctrine through the whole world"
(Origen, c. Celsum, 11. 30). But Augustus was a heathen and his
a
successors persecuted Christianity, so that the Roman Empire served the
Gospel for a long while unconsciously and in spite of its desires. This
conception of universal history made a further stride when Constantine
the Great proclaimed Christianity the religion of the State. “In
ancient times," says Eusebius of Caesarea, “the world was divided
according to countries and nations into a multitude of commonwealths,
tyrannies, principalities. Hence constant wars and the devastations and
depredations following thereon. . . . The origin of these divisions may
certainly be ascribed to the diversity of the gods worshipped by men.
But when the instrument of salvation, the most holy body of Christ. . .
was raised. . . against the demons, forthwith the cause of demons has
vanished and states, principalities, tyrannies, commonwealths have passed
away. . . . One God has been announced to the whole of mankind, one
empire obtained sway over all men—the Roman Empire” (Eusebius,
Panegyric of Constantine, c. 16).
But the unification of the inhabited world (oikovuévn) which forms
the meaning and the greatness of the Roman Empire, is a process pre-
a
CH. XIX.


## p. 544 (#574) ############################################

544
Barbarians in the Empire
common
senting two different sides to the observer. Kelts, Iberians, Rhaetians,
Moors, Illyrians, Thracians were to some extent civilised by the culture of
Greece and Rome, and achieved by its help a great advance in economic
and civic organisation as well as in education ; Syrians, Egyptians, the
inhabitants of Asia Minor only modified to a certain extent their manners
and views in order to meet the requirements of the Empire. But if the
intermixture of tribes and their permeation by Graeco-Roman culture
was in one sense a great progress, it was at the same time, but from
another point of view, a decline; it was accompanied by a lowering of
the level of the culture which exerted the civilising influence. While
conquering barbarism and native peculiarities, Graeco-Roman culture
assumed various traits from its vanquished opponents, and became gross
and vulgar in its turn. In the words of a biographer of Alexander
Severus : good and bad were promiscuously thrust into the Empire,
noble and base, and numbers of barbarians (Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 64).
The unification and transformation of tribes standing on low grades
of civilisation leads to consequences characterised by one
feature, the simplification of aims—degeneration. This process is
concealed for a while by the political and economic advantages follow-
ing on the establishment of the Empire. The creation of a central
authority, upholding peace and intercourse (Pax Romana), the con-
junction of the different parts of the world into one economic system
enlivened by free trade, the spread of citizenship and civil culture in
wider and wider circles of population—all these benefits produced for a
time a rise of prosperity which counterbalanced the excess of barbarous,
imperfectly assimilated elements.
But a series of political misfortunes set in rather rapidly in the
third century :' invasions of barbarians, conflicts between rival can-
didates to the throne, competition between armies and provinces put
an end to order and prosperity and threatened the very existence of the
Empire. In these calamities the barbarisation of Roman culture became
more and more manifest, a backward movement began in all directions,
a backward movement, however, which was by no means a mere falling
back into previous conditions, but gave rise to new and interesting
departures.
It suffices to glance at the names of the Roman citizens of the
Empire in order to notice that we are in very mixed company. Instead
of the nomina and cognomina of earlier days we find strange barbaric
appellations hardly whitewashed by the adjunction of us or er at the end.
A T. Tammonius Saeni Tammoni filius Vitalis, and a Blescius Diovicus
do not look very pure “Quirites. " Such barbarians had first of all to
learn Latin as the common tongue of the Western Empire, and they did
learn to use Latin. But what Latin ! As St Jerome has it: “ Latin
language gets transformed according to countries and to epochs. ” Com-
mon speech, the lingua vulgaris, with a former Kelt, Iberian or Rhaetian
&
a
a


## p. 545 (#575) ############################################

Romance Languages
545
became gradually a new Romance language, the sounds and forms of
which were deflected from the original Latin in consequence of the
physiological and intellectual peculiarities of Kelts, Iberians, Rhaetians.
We may be allowed to give a few instances of this curious process of
transformation from the well-known history of French phonetics and
grammar. The Latin u was kept up in Italian but softened into the
French u (ü), e. g. durus-duro-dur, and we cannot wonder at that,
because the population of Gaul when yet speaking Keltic sounded u as ü
and not somewhat like the English oo in “poor. " The French“ liaison,"
”
the habit of sounding the otherwise mute consonant at the end of a
word before a vowel in order to avoid a “hiatus,” may be traced to the
Keltic habit of joining separate words into compounds. In Keltic
dialects the accent makes one or the other syllable so prominent that
other syllables become indistinct and may get slurred over. This stress
put on the accentuated syllable has called forth in French a charac-
teristic deterioration of unaccentuated parts of words. Sometimes whole
groups of sounds disappear, as in “ Août ” (Augustus), sometimes they
are represented only by a mute e as in “ vie" (vita). The French habit
of marking the last syllable by an accent even in the pronunciation of
Latin goes back ultimately to this trait. In reading the Latin text of
the Salic Law we are struck by the complete dislocation of the system
of declensions—the ablative case is constantly used instead of the accusa-
tive, the accusative instead of the nominative, etc. But this degeneration
was prepared by the practice of vulgar Latin even in the first and
second centuries when the genitive case disappeared. The dative followed
suit somewhat later.
It is not however to be supposed that Latin was imposed even in its
vulgarised forms on the entire population of the Empire. It is needless
to remind the reader of the fact that in the whole eastern half Greek
was the language of the educated classes. But both in the East and in
the West there were many backward regions in which vernacular speech
held its own stubbornly against Greek and Latin. The Copts, Arabs,
Syrians, Armenians never gave up their native languages, and the
oriental undercurrents continued to play an important part in the
social life of Asia and Egypt. There are many vestiges of a similar
persistency of barbarian custom and speech in the West. Roman law
admitted expressly that valid deeds could be executed in Punic and,
judging from the story about a sister of Septimius Severus, Punic must
have been very prevalent among well-to-do families of knightly rank in
Africa : when the lady in question came to visit her brother in Rome,
the Emperor had often to blush on account of her imperfect knowledge
of Latin. The letters and sermons of St Augustine shew that this state
of things had by no means disappeared in romanised Africa in the fifth
century: the great African bishop repeatedly urged the necessity for
dignitaries of the Church to be acquainted with Punic, and he had
C. MED, H. VOL. I. CH. XIX.
35


## p. 546 (#576) ############################################

546
National Survivals and Revivals
2
а
66
а
Pila
d
recourse himself to illustrations drawn from this language. In Spain and
Gascony one living remnant of pre-Roman civilisation has survived to
our days in the “ Es-c-aldunac" speech of the Basques, the offspring of
the Iberian race, while Brittany exhibits another block of pre-Roman
custom in the speech and manners of its Breton population. St Jerome
testifies to the fact that in the neighbourhood of Trèves, one of the
mightiest centres of Roman civilisation, a Keltic dialect was spoken by
the peasants in the fourth century, so that a person reared there pos-
sessed a clue to the speech of the Galatians, the Keltic tribe of Asia
Minor. In the Latinised north-west of the Balkan peninsula the
vernacular Illyrian was never driven out or destroyed, and the present
speech of the Albanians is directly derived from it in spite of a sprinkling
of Latin words and expressions. In the west of England Keltic speech
and custom runs on uninterruptedly through the ages of Roman, Saxon
and Norman conquest. Not to speak of Welsh, which has borrowed
many Latin words, especially technical terms, but remains a purely
Keltic language, Cornish was spoken in Cornwall up to the eighteenth
century, while in Cumberland and Westmorland the custom of shep-
herds to count their sheep in Keltic numerals was the last vestige of the
separate existence of
Welsh ” population.
These traces of stubborn national life forming a kind of barbarian
subsoil to Roman culture are important in many ways: they help us not
only to understand the history of dialects and of folklore, but they
account for a good many spontaneous outbursts of barbarism in the
seemingly pacified and romanised provinces of the Empire at a time
when the iron hand of the rulers began to relax its grip over the con-
quered populations. Berber, Punic, Iberian, Illyrian and Keltic tribes
come forward again in the calamitous years of the fourth and fifth
centuries. Usurpers, riotous soldiers and brigands gather strength from
national aspirations, and in the end the disruption of the Empire becomes
inevitable on account of internal strife as well as of foreign invasions.
Nowhere perhaps has this subliminal life of the province to account for so
much as in England, where the arts and crafts of Rome were introduced
in the course of three centuries and a half of gradual occupation and
Latin itself was widely spoken by the upper classes, but where never-
theless the entire fabric of Roman rule crumbled down so rapidly during
the fifth century, and Kelts were left to fight with the Teutons for the
remnants of what had been one of the fair provinces of Rome.
A transformation similar to that expressed in language is clearly
perceivable in the history of Art. Christianity introduced into the
world a powerful new factor, the strength of which may be gauged in
the paintings of the Catacombs and in the rise of new styles of archi-
tecture-the Byzantine and the Romanesque. Thus we have to deal not
with mere deterioration and decay, but also with the lowering of the level
of culture and the barbarisation of art which make themselves felt in
lonel


## p. 547 (#577) ############################################

Barbarisation of culture. Commercial Intercourse
547
a
various ways. When Rome had to raise a triumphal arch to the con-
queror of Maxentius, a great part of the reliefs for its adornment were
carried over from the Arch of Trajan, while some sculptures were added
by contemporary artists. And the latter perpetuate the decay of art
and of aesthetic taste. The figures are distorted, the faces deformed.
On the so-called discus of Theodosius the symbolical figures of the lower
part were copied from ancient originals and are handsome. The upper
half was filled with representations of living people, and it is evident
that the gross, flat, ugly faces, the heavy embroidered uniforms were
reproduced with fidelity, while the handling of the figures strikes the
observer by its clumsiness and faulty designs. The chief thing in the
pictorial and plastic arts of the third and fourth centuries is not beauty
or expression, but size and costly material. Gallienus, whose unfortunate
reign was nicknamed the “period of the thirty tyrants,” ordered a statue
of himself 200 feet in height: it was planned on such a scale that a child
was able to ascend by a winding staircase to the top of the Emperor's
lance. Instead of marble, precious porphyry, a stone exceedingly difficult
to cut, was used for plastic purposes ; the contractor and polisher were
more important persons than the sculptor for the purpose of making
statues of this material.
It is of special importance for us to notice the gradual degeneration
or rather transformation of economic life. Towards the beginning of
our era a great circuit of industrial and commercial intercourse is formed
under the protection of the Empire: it reminds us in some ways of the
world-market of the present time. The different provinces exchanged
goods and developed specialities fitting into one whole through mutual
support; the excellent roads made quick exchanges possible, considerable
capital sought employment in productive enterprises, firm political
power and mutual confidence fostered the growth of credit. From the
third century onwards the picture changes. The subjection of conquered
peoples by Roman citizens ceases and the greater part of the population
of the Empire is admitted to the rights of citizenship. This meant that
masses of people, over whom governors, publicans and contractors had exer-
cised almost uncontrolled sway, were enabled to come forward with their
interests and legal claims. Provincial forces began to assert themselves,
and in husbandry local needs and the requirements of small people made
themselves more and more felt. As a consequence, the wide organisation
of world intercourse gives way before more direct and modest economic
problems—each social group has to look out primarily for itself in
regard to food, clothing, housing, furniture. On the other hand the
supply of slaves gets more and more hampered by the fact that wars of
conquest cease. In the beginning of the third century we hear already
of a price of 200 aurei or 500 denarii of full ancient coinage for a slave
(Dig. iv. 4, 51)-a very high price indeed, which shews indirectly how
a
CA. XIX.
35_2


## p. 548 (#578) ############################################

548
Commercial Intercourse
a
In an
difficult it was to get slaves. During the protracted defensive wars
which had to be fought on all the frontiers prisoners were frequently
made, but these Germans, Slavs, Huns were difficult to manage and
made clumsy labourers when settled for agricultural purposes : it was
more profitable to leave them a certain independence on their plots, and
therefore to cut up large estates into small holdings. Lastly, the rise
of provincial and local interests and the change in the condition of the
labouring classes coincided with the terrible political calamities which I
have already had occasion to mention. The dislocation of the com-
monwealth rendered all widely extended economic plans insecure and
contributed by itself to the tendency of each separate locality to live its
own life and to work for its own needs without much help from the
outside. As a result of the working of these different causes society falls
back from a complicated system of commercial intercourse to the simpler
forms of “natural economy. ” This movement is not arrested by the
restoration of the Empire in the fourth century, but rather strengthened
by it. Political power is indeed restored, but it has to be maintained
by straining every nerve in social life, and this straining hampers free
movement and free contract, fastens every one to a certain place and to a
certain calling
Exposition of the whole world and of nations” translated
from Greek in the time of Constantius (soon after 345) much attention
is still paid to the economic intercourse between the different parts of
the Empire. Greece itself is said to be unable to satisfy its own needs,
but in regard to many of the other provinces it is expressly noted that
they are sufficient unto themselves. Besides, most of them produce
goods which are exported to other places. Ascalon and Gaza, for
example, are said to provide excellent wine for Syria and Egypt;
Scythopolis, Laodicea (in Syria), Byblus, Tyre, Berytus send out linen
wares all round the world, while Caesarea, Tyre, Sarepta and Neapolis
are famous in the same way for their purple-dyed tissues. Egypt
supplies Constantinople and the Eastern provinces with corn and has
a monopoly in the production of papyrus. From Cappadocia furs are
obtained, from Galatia different kinds of clothing. Laodicea in Phrygia
has given a name to garments of a special kind. Asia and the Helles-
pont produce corn, wine and oil; in Macedonia and Dalmatia, iron
and lead mines are noted ; in Dardania (Illyria) pastoral pursuits are
prevalent and bacon and cheese are sent to market, while Epirus is
distinguished by its large fishing trade. The Western provinces are not
described in such a minute way but fine Italian wines are mentioned,
the trade of Arles for imports into Gaul is noted, and Spain is extolled
on account of its oil, cloth, bacon and mules. Oil is also said to be
largely supplied by the African province, while clothing and cattle come
from Numidia. Pannonia and Mauretania are the only provinces
mentioned as carrying on the slave trade.


## p. 549 (#579) ############################################

Diocletian's Edict as to Prices
549
Some forty-five years before this commercial geography of the
Empire was drawn up, another curious document shews the imperial
authorities engaged in a wearisome struggle in order to protect easy
intercourse and to ward off the rise of prices—I mean the famous edict
of Diocletian and of his companion Emperors establishing maximum
prices in the Empire. Such measures are not taken without cogent
reasons and, indeed, we are told that prices had risen enormously,
although it is hardly probable that the reason of the dearth had to be
sought in the iniquities of the rulers (Lactantius, de mortibru perse-
cutorum, c. 7). The enactment itself dilates on the evil greed of
avaricious producers and vendors, and declares in the name of the
“fathers of human kind” that justice has to arbitrate and to intervene.
The Emperors are especially incensed at the hard bargains which are
extorted from soldiers quartered in the provinces or moving along the
roads : prices are screwed up on such occasions not to four or eight
times the ordinary value, but to an extent that could not be expressed
in words. If such things happen in times of abundance what is to be
expected from seasons when actual want is experienced? Without
attempting to fix normal prices the Emperors threaten with capital
punishment merchants engaged in supplying the different provinces
with wares : Lactantius reports that blood flowed and that the
impossibility of enforcing cheapness by the hands of executioners was
only recognised after fruitless attempts to terrorise tradesmen into
submission.
Let us look, however, at some of the details of the edict, fragments
of which have been preserved in several copies in the Balkan peninsula,
Asia Minor and Egypt, viz. , in the provinces under the direct sway of
Diocletian.
Traces of commercial intercourse of the same kind as that described
in the Expositio frequently meet the eye. We hear again of the high
class wines of Italy, of linen vestments from Laodicea, Scythopolis,
Byblus, of purple-dyed garments manufactured on the Syrian coast and
fetching very high prices, and of somewhat less expensive kinds from
Miletus : a piece of purple linen for ornamental stripes (clavi) weighing
six ounces may be sold for 13,000, 23,000 and even 32,000 denarii,
50,000 of the latter corresponding to one pound of gold' Cloth
garments came from Laodicea in Phrygia, from Modena in Italy and in
the shape of coarse, warm mantles from Flanders. In a word the lines
of commercial intercourse are clearly traced, but the difficulties en-
countered by trade under new conditions are also very
visible. Some
comparisons with extant valuations of goods ordered for soldiers enable
us to form a judgment as to the Auctuations of prices which Diocletian's
enactment tried to moderate. We hear, e. g. , that in one
case 80
1 Roughly equivalent to £46 present coinage.
a
CH. XIX.


## p. 550 (#580) ############################################

550
Economic Compulsion
pounds of bacon were estimated at 1 solidus (6000 copper denarii) and
in another instance 20 pounds at 1000 denarii. According to the tariff
of Diocletian the maximum price for bacon of the best kind would have
been in the first instance 96,000, and in the second 16,000 copper
denarii, the latter being about 16 times more than the ordinary
price.
It is important to notice that while the ordinary agricultural
labourer is not allowed to receive higher wages than 25 silver denarii
(about 120 copper denarii) per day besides board, the maximum price of
a double sextarius (roughly, about a quart) of wheat was fixed at 100
silver denarii, and that of a pound of pork at 12 silver denarii.
One cannot wonder at the failure of Diocletian's attempt, which
according to contemporary testimony only increased the evils it was
meant to suppress, the penalties against the merchants leading to
concealment of goods and interruptions of trade. But it is charac-
teristic of the methods of compulsory legislation constantly employed
by the emperors of the fourth century that Julian made a similar and
quite as unsuccessful attempt to coerce the citizens of Antioch into
fair trade.
It is impossible to suppose that such measures were dictated by a
kind of “ Caesar madness," prompting the rulers of the civilised world to
affirm their will and wisdom as against economic laws. However faulty
in its conception, the policy indicated by the edicts of Diocletian and
Julian had its roots in a well-meaning though ineffectual desire to
regulate trade and to protect fair intercourse. It may be likened, as
most attempts to impose maximum limits to prices, to the police super-
vision of trade in necessaries of life practised in besieged cities. The
emperors and their bureaucracy had come to look on the whole civilised
world subject to their authority as upon a besieged city, in which all
civil professions had to conform to military rule.
The same kind of evolution from free intercourse to compulsion may
be observed in the legislation on commercial and industrial corporations.
Roman law passed through several stages in this respect. At the time
of the Republic guilds of artisans and merchants could be formed by
private agreement if their statutes and activity did not infringe the
laws of the State (Gaius in Dig. XLVII. 22, 4). During the civil con-
ficts of the last years of the Republic and in the early Empire organised
corporations were several times dissolved and forbidden on account of
the political agitation carried on by their members, and from Augustus'
time concession by the Senate and confirmation by the Prince had to be
applied for when a new college or guild had to be formed. But police
supervision by the State did not alter the main feature of the cor-
porations, namely their spontaneous origin in the needs of society and
the wish of private persons to carry on profitable trade and to form
unions for mutual support and social intercourse. The imperial Govern-


## p. 551 (#581) ############################################

Corporations
551
ment was often inclined to repress these spontaneous tendencies, as we
may gather, e. g. , from Trajan's correspondence with Pliny.
The first indication of a further change in the relations between
government and corporations may be noticed in the reign of Alexander
Severus. This Emperor, instead of restricting the rise of trade guilds,
actually favoured the formation of corporations of wine merchants,
grocers, shoemakers and other crafts (Lampridius, Alexander Severus,
33). We may suspect that at this time, that is in the second quarter
of the third century, the Government began to perceive a slackening in
the energy of trade and commerce and chose to exert its authority in
patronising trade guilds. The restoration of imperial power under
Aurelian brought about another and more powerful attempt in the same
direction. One of the measures of this Emperor was the assumption of
a wide-reaching guardianship over the alimentation of Rome. The
supply of corn from Egypt was increased ; lists of paupers (proletarii)
entitled to be fed by the State were drawn up, and the privilege of
living at the cost of the commonwealth was made hereditary; instead of
corn bread was distributed, and along with bread-oil, salt and pork.
In connexion with this system of alimentation of the poorer classes in
Rome Aurelian reorganised the service of the merchants responsible for
the transport of corn on the Nile and on the Tiber. This throws light
on the immediate reason for the transformation of corporations in the
ensuing age: trades and crafts which had a bearing on vital needs of
social intercourse were taken under the tutelage of the Empire and
carried on henceforth, not as free professions but as compulsory services.
This is clearly seen in the legislation of Constantine and remains
characteristic of the legal treatment of trade during the whole of the
fourth and of the fifth century.
In the Lex Julia of 747 u. c. enacted by Augustus the principle
was already formulated that a combination of individual workmen or
traders into a college had to be warranted not only by their wishes and
interests but by public utility. The public element assumes now a
preponderating influence. Bakers are authorised to form a craft guild
not because they see an advantage in being organised in this way, but
because the State wants their services in regulating the trade in bread
and providing for the needs of the inhabitants of cities. The result
of this enlisting of trades and crafts into public service is a system
entirely at variance with our conceptions of supply and demand, and of
economic intercourse.
To begin with, all freedom in the choice of professions came to an
end. Corporations are required to hold their members to their occupa-
tions all through life. All attempts of single members to leave their
place of abode and customary work are considered as a flight from duty
and severely forbidden. In 395, e. g. , Arcadius and Honorius decree
heavy fines against powerful people who conceal and protect fugitive
CH. XIX.


## p. 552 (#582) ############################################

552
The Navicularii
corn.
members of curiae and collegia. For each one of the latter the patron
has to pay a fine of a pound of gold (C. Th. xn. 1, 147). The codices
are full of enactments against fugitives of this kind, and such legislation
would prove, by itself, that a régime of caste was being gradually
established in the Empire. It is certain that the invasions of barbarians,
such as those of Alaric for example, contributed powerfully to scatter
the working population, but, apart from these, one of the motives of
Alight was the heavy burden of taxation'. It is probable that the
initiative in regard to the measures of stern compulsion came not from
the bureaucrats of the Empire, but from the corporations themselves
which were made liable to the requirements of the State in case of the
flight of their members. Of course, the consistent enforcement of such
a policy actually blocked the natural selection of professions and the
development of independent enterprise.