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 MONASTERIES

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MONASTERIES

lished instead a si)ecial "Tractatus de Monarchia Sicula". During llie War of the Spanish Succession another serious conflict arose between the Papal Curia and the Spanish court in regard to this alleged legatine power. The occasion of the dispute was a question of ecclesiastical innnunity, and the tlitTer- enccs continued after Count Victor Aniadcus lia<l been made King of Sicily by the Peace of Utreclit and had been crowned at Palermo (1713). On JO February, 1715, Clement XI declared the Monarchia Siiulii null and void, and revoked the privileges iiltached to it. This edict w'a-s not recognized b.\' the monarchs of Sicily, and, when a few years later the island came under the rule of Charles \T, Benedict XIII entered into negotiations with him with the result that the Decree of Clement XI w:is withdrawn, and the Mon- archia Sicula rt'stored, but in an altered form. The king, through the concession of the pojjc coidd now appoint the .1 whx Moniin-liiir Sicula; who was at the same time to be the delegate of the Holy See and em- powered to decide in the last instance upon religious matters. On the basis of this concession the kings of Sicily demanded more and more far reaching rights in ecclesiastical affairs, so that fresh struggles with the Holy See constantly arose. The situation grew ever more unbearable. Pius IX tried in vain by amicable adjustments to enforce the essential rights of the Holy See in Sicily. Garibaldi, as "Dictator" of Sicily, claimed the rights of the papal legate, and, during the ser\-ice in the cathedral at Palermo, caused legatine honours to be shown him. In the Bull "Supreina" of 28 January, 18G4, which was not published with the prescriptions for its execution until 10 October, 1867, Pius IX revoked the Monarchia Sicula finally and for- ever. The government of Victor Emanuel protested, and the Judex M onarchim Sicula, Rinaldi, refused to submit, for which he was excommunicated in 1868. Article 15 of the Italian law of guarantees (13 May, 1871) explicitly revoked the Monarchia Sicula, and the question was thus finally disposed of.

Sextis, Die Monarchia Sicula. Eine historisch-canonistiscke Untersuchung (Freiburg, 1869), which contaiDS the older litera- ture (pp. 4-6) : FORNO, Storia della aposlolica legazione annessa alia corona di Sicilia (2nd ed.. Palermo, 1869) ; Scaduto, Stalo e chiesa in Sicilia (Palermo, 1887); Giannonne, II Iribunale della Mo- narchia Sicula (Rome, 1892); Caspar, Die Legatengewalt der normannischsizilischen Herrscher im 13. Jahr. in Quellen u. For- schungen ausilalien. Archivenu. Bibliotheken, VII (1904), 189-219. J. P. KiKSCH.

Monasteries, Double, religious houses compris- ing communities of both men and women, dwelling in contiguous establishments, united under the rule of one superior, and using one church in common for their liturgical offices. The reason for such an ar- rangement was that the spiritual needs of the nuns might be attended to by the priests of the male com- munity, who were associated with them more closely than would have been possible in the case of entirely separate and independent monasteries. The system came into existence almost contemporaneously with monasticism itself, and like it had its origin in the East. Communities of women gathered around re- ligious founders in Egypt and elsewhere, and from the life of St. Pachomius we learn many details as to the nuns under his rule and their relation to the male com- munities founded by him. Double monasteries, of which those of St. Basil and his sister, Macrina, may be cited as examples, were apparently numerous throughout the East during the early centuries of monasticism. It cannot be stated with any certainty when the system found its way into the West, but it seems probable that its introduction into Gaul may be roughly ascribed to the influence of Cassian, who did so much towards reconciling Eastern monasticism with Western ideas. St. Ca'sarius of Aries, St. Aure- lian, his successor, and St. Radegundis, of Poitiers, founded double monasteries in the sixth century, and later on the system was propagated widely by St.

Columbanus and his followers. Remiremont, Jou- arre. Brie, Chelles, Andelys, and Soissons were other well-known examples of the seventh and eighth cen- turies. Prom Gaul the idea spread to Belgium and Germany and also to Spain, where it is said to have been introduced by St. Fructuosus in the middle of the seventh century. According to "ii'iH's there were in Spain altogether over two hundred double monas- teries.

Ireland presents only one known example — Kildare — but probably there were others besides, of which all traces have since been lost. In Enghmd most of the early foundations were double; this has been wrongly attributed by some writers to the fact that many of the Anglo-Saxon nuns were e<hicated in Gaul, where the system was then in vogue, but it seems more cor- rect to ascribe it to the religious influence of the mis- sionaries from lona, since the first double monastery in England was that of St. Hilda at Whitby, estab- lished under the gui<lance of St. Aidan, and there is no evidence to show that either St. Aidan or St. Hilda was acquainted with the double organization in use elsewhere. Whitby was founded in the sc^'enth cen- tury, and in a short time England became covered with similar dual establishments, of which Coldingham, Ely, Sheppey, Minster, Wimborne, and Barking are prominent examples. In Italy, the only other coun- try besides those already mentioned where double monasteries are known to have existed, they were not numerous, but St. Gregory speaks of them as being found in Sardinia (Ep. xi), and St. Bede mentions one at Rome (Hist. Eccl., IV, i). The Danish invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries destroyed the double monasteries of England, and, when they were re- stored, it was for one sex only, instead of for a dual community. The system seems to have died out also in other countries at about the same time, and it was not revived until the end of the eleventh century when Robert of Arbrissel inaugurated his reform at Fontevrault and gave the idea a fresh lease of life. It is not surprising to find that such a .system was some- times abused, and hence it was always an object of solicitude and strict legislation at the hands of ecclesi- astical authority. Many synodal and conciliar de- crees recognized its dangers, and ordered the strictest surveillance of all communications passing between monks and nuns. Too close proximity of buildings was frequently forbidden, and every precaution was taken to prevent any occasion of scandal. Very prob- ably it was this scant favour shown by the Church towards it that caused the gradual decline of the sys- tem about the tenth century.

In many double monasteries the supreme rule was in the hands of the abbess, and monks as well as nuns were subject to her authority. This was especially the case in England, e. g. in St. Hilda's at Whitby and St. Etheldreda's at Ely, though elsewhere, but more rarely, it was the abbot who ruled both men and women, and sometimes, more rarely still, each com- munity had its own superior independent of the other. The justification for the anomalous position of a woman acting as the superior of a community of men is usually held to originate from Christ's words from the Cross, "Woman, behold thy son; Son, behold thy mother"; and it is still further urged that maternity is a form of authority derived from nature, whilst that which is paternal is merely legal. But, whatever may be its origin, the supreme rule of an abbess over both men and women was deliberately revived, and sanc- tioned by the Church, in two out of the three medie- val orders that consisted of double monasteries. At Fontevrault (founded 1099) and with the Bridget- tines (1346), the abbess was the superior of monks as well as of nuns, though with the Gilbertines (1146) it was the prior who ruled over both. In the earlier double monasteries both monks and nuns observed the same rule mutatis mutandis; this example was fol-