"Among the things which it behoves us to regulate by common consent, it is more especially necessary to meet discreetly, the complaints of the parochial priests of the province of Galicia, touching the rapacity of their bishops, which has grown to such a height as to compel the priests to demand public inquiry into them; such inquiry having been made, it has clearly resulted that these bishops overwhelm their parochial churches with their exactions; and that while they themselves wallow in luxury, they have brought many of the churches to the verge of ruin; in order to put a stop to such abuses we order that, according to the regulations of the synod of Braga, each of the bishops of the said province shall receive annually from each of the churches in his diocese the sum of two solidi,1 and no more. And when the bishop visits his diocese, let him be burdensome to no one from the multitude of his attendants, let him have no more than five carriages with him, and let him stay no longer than one day at each church."2

The extracts here given are amply sufficient to prove the oppression and the resistance, the evil and the attempt to remedy it; the resistance was abortive, the remedy ineffectual: episcopal despotism continued to take deeper and wider root. Thus, at the commencement of the eighth century, the church had fallen into a state of disorder almost equal to that prevalent in civil society. Without superiors, without inferiors at all to be dreaded-relieved from the superin→ tendence of the metropolitans and of the councils, rejecting the influence of the priests-a crowd of bishops were seen yielding themselves up to the most scandalous excesses. Masters of the ever increasing wealth of the church, ranking amongst the great landed proprietors, they adopted their interests and their manners; they relinquished their ecclesiastical character and led a wholly secular life; they kept hounds and falcons, they went from place to place surrounded by an armed retinue, they took part in the national warfare; nay more, they undertook, from time to time, expeditions of violence and rapine against their neighbours on their own account. A crisis was inevitable; everything prepared the necessity for reformation, everything proclaimed it, and

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2 Council of Toledo, in 646, c. 4.

you will see that in point of fact, shortly after the accession of the Carlovingians, an attempt at reformation was made by the civil power, but the church herself contained the germ of a remedy: side by side with the secular clergy, there had been rising up another order, influenced by other principles, animated with another spirit, and which seemed destined to prevent that dissolution with which the church was menaced⚫ I speak of the monks. Their history from the sixth to eighth century will be the object of our next lecture.

FOURTEENTH LECTURE.

History of the regular clergy, or the monks, from the sixth to the eighth century-That the monks were at first laymen-Importance of this fact -Origin and progressive development of the monastic life in the east— First rules-Importation of the monks into the west-They are ill received there-Their first progress-Difference between eastern and western monasteries-Opinion of Saint Jerome, as to the errors of the monastic life-General causes of its extension-State of the monks in the west in the fifth century-Their power and their want of coherence-Saint Benedict-His life-He founds the monastery of Monte Cassino-Analysis and estimate of his rule-It diffuses itself throughout the west, and becomes predominant in almost all the monasteries there.

SINCE we resumed the history of religious society in Frankish Gaul, we have considered: 1, the general dominant fact which characterized the church from the sixth to the eighth century-that is to say, its unity; 2, its relations with the state; 3, its internal organization, the mutual position of the governors and the governed, the constitution of the government—that is to say, of the clergy.

We have seen that, towards the middle of the eighth century, the government of the church, the clergy, had fallen into a state of great disorder and decay. We have recognised a crisis, the necessity for reformation; I mentioned to you that a principle of reform already existed in the bosom of the clergy itself; I named the regular clergy, the monks; it is with their history at the same period that we are now about to occupy ourselves.

The term, regular clergy, is calculated to produce an illusory effect, it gives one the idea that the monks have always

been ecclesiastics, have always essentially formed a part of the clergy, and this is, in point of fact, the general notion which has been applied to them indiscriminately, without regard to time, or place, or to the successive modifications of the institution. And not only are monks regarded as ecclesiastics, but they are by many people considered as, so to speak, the most ecclesiastical of all ecclesiastics, as the most completely of all clerical bodies separated from civil society, as the most estranged from its interest and from its manners. This, if I mistake not, is the impression which the mere mention of their name at present, and for a long time past, naturally arouses in the mind; it is an impression full of error: at their origin, and for at least two centuries afterwards, the monks were not ecclesiastics at all; they were mere laymen, united together indeed by a common religious creed, in a common religious sentiment, and with a common religious object, but altogether apart from the ecclesiastical society, from the clergy, especially so called.

And not only was such the nature of the institution at its origin, but this primitive character which is so generally unheeded, has prominently influenced its whole history, and alone enables us to comprehend its vicissitudes. I have already made some remarks upon the establishment of monasteries in the west, more especially in the south of Gaul. I will now, in renewing the subject, trace back the facts to their remotest sources, and follow them more closely in their development.

You are all aware it was in the east that the monks took their rise. The form in which they first appeared, was very different from that which they afterwards assumed, and in which the mind is accustomed to view them. In the earlier years of Christianity, a few men of more excitable imaginations than their fellows, imposed upon themselves all sorts of sacrifices and of extraordinary personal austerities; this, however, was no Christian innovation, for we find it, not only in a general tendency of human nature, but in the religious manners of the entire east, and in several Jewish traditions. The ascetes (this was the name first given to these pious enthusiasts; aσknoɩç, exercises, ascetic life,) were the first form of monks. They did not segregate, in the first instance, from civil society; they did not retire into the deserts; they only

condemned themselves to fasting, silence, to all sorts of austerities, more especially to celibacy.

Soon afterwards they retired from the world; they went to live far from mankind, absolutely alone, amidst woods and deserts, in the depths of the Thebaïd. The ascetes became hermits, anchorites; this was the second form of the monastic life.

After some time, from causes which have left no traces behind them-yielding, perhaps, to the powerful attraction of some more peculiarly celebrated hermit, of Saint Anthony, for instance, or perhaps simply tired of complete isolation, the anchorites collected together, built their huts side by side, and while continuing to live each in his own abode, performed their religious exercises together, and began to form a regular community. It was at this time, as it would seem, that they first received the name of monks.1

By and bye they made a further step; instead of remaining in separate huts, they collected in one edifice, under one roof: the association was more closely knit, the common life more complete. They became cenobites;2 this was the fourth form of the monastic institution, its definitive form, that to which all its subsequent developments were to adapt themselves.

At about this period we see arising, for the conduct of these houses of cenobites, for these monasteries, a certain discipline mutually agreed upon, certain written rules, directing the exercises of these small societies, and laying down the obligations of their members; among these primitive rules of the eastern monks, the most celebrated are those of Saint Anthony, Saint Macharius, Saint Hilarius, and Saint Pacomus; all these rules are brief and general, directed to a few leading circumstances of life, but without any pretension to govern the whole life; they are precepts, in fact, rather than rules, customs, rather than laws. The ascetes, the hermits, and the other different classes of monks, continued to subsist, concurrently with the cenobites, in all the independence of their first condition.

The spectacle of such a life, of so much rigidity and enthusiasm, of sacrifice and of liberty, strongly excited the imagi

1 Monachus, μovaxos, from povos, alone.

2 Cenobitæ Koivobiol, from Koivoç, common, and Bioc, life.