Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/90

 CLONAKD

64

CLONFERT

monasteries (Hard., IV, 497, 498), and in the twen- tieth it condemns double monasteries, occupied by both monks and nuns (Hard., IV, 499, 500). Neither Balsamon nor Aristenes, in their commentaries on the canons of the councils (P. G., CXXXVII), nor Bla- staris (1332), in his alphabetical list of the canons (P. G., CXLV, under the titles, " Hermits ", " Nuns ", col. 45-48, 49-50), nor the Maronite council of 1736, has any more recent general law to cite. This Maronite council cites two other Maronite synods of 1578 and 1596 (Coll. Lac, II, 36). In an article like the pres- ent it would be impossible to follow the evolution of the Eastern legislation and the Eastern usages in this matter, owing to the multitude of rites and of com- munities into which the Orientals tend to split up.

We may cite two Catholic Maronite synods of Mt. Lebanon, held in 1736 and 1818. The former of these (De monasteriis et monachis, IV, c.ii) recalls the old canons, forbids double monasteries, imposes on the monks a cloister similar to that of the Western regu- lars, penalizing women offenders with sentence of excommunication, reserved to the patriarch. In the third chapter, devoted to sisterhoods, the Fathers recognize that the strict cloister is not of obligation in their Church. They allow the nuns to go out for the needs of their convent, but they desire that the nuns shall never go out alone. The execution of these decrees was very slow, and met with much diffi- culty; and the synod of 1818 had to be convened in order to finally separate the convents of men from those of women (cf. Coll. Lac, II, 365-368, 374, 382, 490, 491, 496, 576).

The provincial synod of the Ruthenians of the United Greek Rite (1720) introduced what is prac- tically the Roman clausura the excommunication protecting their cloister is reserved to the pope (Coll. Lac, II, 55, 58). In the patriarchal council of the Greek Melchite United Church (1812), we find nothing but a simple prohibition to the monks to go on journeys without written permission from their supe- rior, and to pass the night outside of their monastery, except when assisting the dying (Coll. Lac, II, 586). In the Coptic Catholic and the Syrian Catholic Churches there are at present no religious whatever. It may be affirmed, as a matter of fact, that the cloister is often relaxed among Eastern monks, especially the schismatics; the exclusion of women, how- ever, is very rigorous in the twenty convents of Mt. Athos and among the Egyptian monks. There we find even more than the ancient rigour of the Studists for no female animal of any kind is allowed to exist on the promontory (see St. Theodore the Studite, "Epistula Nicolao discipulo, et testamentum", § 5, in P. G., XCIX, 941, 1820). The Basilian nuns of the Russian Church also observe a strict cloister.

For Cloister in the architectural sense, see under Abbey.

For the historioal sources see Hardouin, Acta Condliorum (Paris, 1714-15); Boretius and Krause, Capitularia Regum Francorum (Hanover, 1883 and 1897); Revillout, Le Concile de Nicie d'aprcs les textes copies et les diverses collections cano- niqucs. Dissertation critique (2 vols., Paris, 1876—98); Migne, PatrologicB cursus complelus (Paris, 1844-18G2); Collectio La- ernais: Acta et Dccreta S. Condliorum Recenliorum (7 vols., Frei- burc im Br., 1870-90); Hefele, Concilieniirschichle (Freiburg imBr., 1873-1890); Vbrmeersch, De Religmsis Institutiset Per- sonis: Sitpplementa el Manumenta (Bruges. 1904).

For the legislation, almost all the canonists and moralists might be cited. We will however limit ourselves to some of those who have more formally treated the matter. — For the ancient legislation in particular, Bonacina, Tractatus de C'lau- surd et de pwnis earn viotantibus impositis, in Opera omnia (Lyons, 1654), I; Pellizarius, Manuale Regularium (2 vols., Lyons, 160,')); Montani (ed.), Traclatio de Monialibus (Editio correeta, Rome, 1761); Lic.uoni, Theologia moralis, I, 7, n. 221-243. — For authorities in modern lecislation see Piat, Prateclionrs juris regularis (Tournai, 1898); Wernz, Jus Decretnlium diome. 1901), III, n. 658; Hollweck, Die kirch- hchen Strafgesetze (Main?,, 1899); Heimbucher, Die Orden und Congregalionen der katholischm Kirchc (Paderbom, 1907); Vehmeersch, Dc Religiosis InsliluHs et Personis. I, 2nd ed. (BruRes, 1906).— See also Dolhaoaray, La loi de la clMnre darus lea couvents d'hommes in Rev. des sciences eccUs. (1897),

LXXV, 220 sqq.; Idem, La cloture religituse, ibid. (1896), LXXIV, 289 sqq.; La cloture papale in Anal. jur. ponlif. (1858), III, 423 sqq., and (1861), V. 513 sqq.; Andre-Wagner, Did. dc droit canoniquc fParis, 1901), s. v. Cloture; La cloture passive in Anal. jur. ponlif. (1887), X.WII, and (1888), XXVIII.

Arthur Vermeersch.

Clonard, School of. — C^lonard (Irish, Cluain Eraird, or Cluaiii Iraird, Erard's Meadow) was situ- ated on the beautiful river Boyne, just beside the boundary line of the northern and southern halves of Ireland. The founder of this school, the most famous of the sixth century, was St. Finnian, an abbot and great wonder-worker. He was born at Myshall, County Carlow, about 470. At an early age he was placed under the care of St. Fortchern, by whose direc- tion, it is said, he proceeded to Wales to perfect him- self in holiness and sacred knowledge under the great saints of that country. After a long sojourn there, of thirty years according to the Salamanca MS., he re- turned to his native land and went about from place to place, preaching, teaching, and founding churches, till he was at last led by an angel to Cluain Eraird, which he was told would be the place of his resurrec- tion. Here he built a little cell and a church of clay and wattle, which after some time gave way to a sub- stantial stone structure, and entered on a life of study, mortification, and prayer. The fame of his learning and sanctity was soon noised abroad, and scholars of all ages flocked from every side to his monastic retreat — young laymen and clerics, abbots and bishops even, and those illustrious saints who were afterwards known as the " Twelve Apostles of Erin ". In the Office of St. Finnian it is stated that there were no fewer than 3000 pupils getting instruction at one time in the school in the green fields of Clonard under the broad canopy of heaven. The master excelled in exposition of the Sacred Scriptures, and to this fact must be mainly attributed the extraordinary popularity which his lectures enjoyed. The exact date of the saint's death is uncertain, but it was probably 552, and his burial-place is in his own church of Clonard. For cen- turies after his death the school continued to be re- nowned as a seat of Scriptural learning, but it suffered at the hands of the Danes, especially in the eleventh century, and two wretched Irishmen, O'Rorke of Breifney and Dermod McMurrough, helped to com- plete the unholy work which the Northmen had begim. With the transference by the Norman Bishop de Rochfort, in 1206, of the See of Meath from Clonard to Trim, the glory of the former place departed forever.

Irish Life in Book of Lismore: Healy, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars (Dublin, 1890).

John Healy.

Clonfert, Diocese of (Clonfertensis, in Irish Cluain-Jearta Brcnainn), a suffragan see of the metro- politan province of Tuam, was founded in 557 by St. Brendan the Navigator, in a sheltered cluain or meadow near the Shannon shore, at the eastern ex- tremity of the County Cialway. The diocese w'as nearly coextensive with the tribe-land of the Hy Many or O'Kelly countrj-. It still contains twenty- four parishes in the south-east of the County Galway, including one small parish east of the Shannon, which formed a part of the ancient Hy Many territorj'. The renown of Brendan as a saint and traveller by land and sea attracted from the very beginning many monks and students to his monastery of Clonfert, so that it became a very famous school of sanctity and learning, numbering at one time, it is said, no less than three thousand students. Brendan was not a bishop himself, but he had as coadjutor, his nephew Moinenn, who, after his death, became an abbot- bishop and head of the monastic school. At a later period a still more celebrated man, Cummian Fada, or Cummian the Tall, presided over the School and Diocese of Clonfert. He took a leading part in the famous Paschal controversy and WTote a very learned